Rise of the Demons
by DagaYemar
Summary: A strange village has appeared from nowhere and has launched attacks all over the ninja world! Who are they, what do they want, and why are they so powerful? There might be no recovering from this...please review!
1. Chapter 1

There are many names for parallel worlds. The shadow world. The other world. The positive/negative world, depending what side you are on. The dual world. The dark world.

I like to call this one the Billy world. Why? Because that's my name.

You're wondering about my eye patch? I got it when…oh? You mean my other eye patch? Well, you see, there was this pirate and…

No? You want to know about my third eye patch? Um…well…

But we've strayed from the story I was about to tell. Now let's see…how to begin…

Chapter 1

It started, as these things usually do, with something small. In this case, it was a soft humming sound that woke Nezuke Jouroba from his nap.

Jouroba ran a tired hand over his eyes and tried to figure out what it was he was hearing. He didn't even hear it as much as feel it, as one would a fly buzzing next to your ear. At his advanced age, it was a blessing that he could hear anything at all. A phantom sound would be just another sign of his long life closing in on him. Satisfied that's what it was, he brushed a hand past his ear before turning over and trying to find some more sleep.

But despite his best efforts, the sound persisted. And he found he could _actually_ feel it as well. His bed was softly vibrating to the pitch of the humming. Reluctantly, Jouroba sat up and peered around his room. His old bones protested and he longed to return to his rest, but not until this little mystery was resolved.

Nothing seemed remiss, though. Light poured softly through his partially drawn curtains, illuminating his room enough for his tired eyes to see that nothing was out of place. Though diluted by the mist outside his window, he could see that it wasn't dark enough for supper, when he usually woke. Confused, the elder turned partially and stopped as the painting that hung above his bed caught his eye. It was slightly tilted, and as he watched the vibrations he could still feel caused it to slip a bit more out of line.

A thought occurred to him, and a small sliver of alarm started to grow in his chest.

Ignoring his shaking joints, Jouroba reached up and pulled the painting off its hook, revealing a small safe. The humming sound was slightly louder now and definitely coming from the safe. With a hand that shook with more than age he turned the knob and pulled open the door. He reached in and pulled out a heavy box covered in protective charms. With a sigh, he placed the box between his legs and settled down in front of it.

For a moment he just stared at it, afraid to go any farther. Then, without warning, the humming and vibrations ceased. The sudden silence was more terrifying to his old ears than the humming had been. Reaching a decision, he slipped a finger under the ancient bindings and tore them free. Before his courage could fail him, he flipped open the lid and peered inside. Nestled on a soft, velvet bed was a large pearl the size of an egg. It looked just like the last and only time he had seen it before, except for one detail. Back then, it wasn't glowing softly with a pale light.

Jouroba stared at it for a moment, then shuffled out of bed and started hurriedly pulling on his robes. "The Mizukage must hear of this." he muttered to himself as he rushed as fast as he could towards the door.

***

"You're right." Homura said as he looked with distaste and the softly glowing sphere in her palm. "This is indeed a problem. But what should we do about it?"

Kohara slipped the orb into an inner pocket so neither of them would have to look at it. "Ideally, show this to the Hokage. But Danzo's been missing since the gokage summit."

"And Tsunade is still unconscious…" Homura rubbed his chin in thought. "With Jiraiya dead, the next highest jonin would be Kakashi. But he's also missing."

"Probably shadowing the Kyuubi child." Kohara waved her hand as if to brush the unpleasant thought physically from the air. "We could send a messenger hawk after him if no other option is available. What of the head of the Hyuga clan?"

Homaru ground his teeth and started walking, prompting Kohara to follow in his wake. "It is a place to start. We are Konaha's chief counselors. If we don't protect the village, who will?"

***

"Really, we have other scouts who can go." Temari tried again with a sigh. "You don't have to keep going out yourself."

"I can handle the desert better than most." Gaara said softly. He stared at his brother and sister with hard eyes that broke no argument.

Kankuro almost laughed, but wisely kept it in. "Look, we know you're strong, but you're place is here. What if…"

"Lord Kazikage, I need to speak with you immediately."

The trio turned and regarded Elder Daisu Fuki, who was striding towards them with as much dignity as her age-bent frame allowed her. She was clutching something in her hand opposite her cane.

"We were about to go on patrol, Elder." Gaara said with his usual uncomfortable difference. "Perhaps when I return…"

"There is no time." she said, cutting him off. Garra's eyes widened in surprise. "What I've discovered is of grave importance to the village's safety. You two should go rouse the sentries and guard the wall."

"Who do you think you're…" Temari started, but Gaara raised his hand and cut her off. He gave them an almost imperceptible nod and grimaced. Kankuro and Temari glanced at each other over his shoulder and vanished in a puff of chakra.

"All right," Gaara said, turning his attention fully upon Fuki, "you had better start at the beginning."

***

Elder Gaibo was saying something, but the Tsuchikage wasn't listening to his prattle. His attention was fixed upon the orb resting on the table before him. It glowed innocently in the shadow cast by the pavilion's canopy, but he knew what that glow meant.

In his mind's eye, he could remember seeing it for the first time. He was but a child when it was offered to his father, then the Kage. And the bloody war that came not long after…

_What terrible timing. We've just started preparing for Akatsuki, and now this? If they've all activated again…after all this time…_with effort, he shook these thoughts out of his head and glared daggers at his counselor.

"I knew this story before you learned of it, Gaibo. Stop carrying on like that and let me think."

Gaibo swallowed the rest of his recount and lapsed into silence. From the Tsuchikage's right, Kurotsuchi leaned over the table to get a better look at the pearl. "Oh, let him talk, gramps. We haven't heard the story, right Akatsuchi?" The large ninja shook his head but said nothing.

"We don't have time for campfires tales." The Tsuchikage snapped. He snatched the sphere up and glared at the others, a fire burning behind his eyes. "The danger is real and upon us! Recall all patrols and cancel all anti-Akatsuki operations. I want every available ninja loyal to Iwagakure here and ready to defend it now!"

***

Lord Raikage stood facing out the window of his office, his hand clasped over the stump of his left hand behind his back. "So if what you're telling me is true, we're going to have a fight on our hands."

Ropou Lazu, the oldest member of his advisors, nodded his head in ascent. "They will undoubtedly try to retrieve the pearl. I recommend we hide it in the caves…"

"No!" The Raikage spun around and everyone in the room could see the eager glint in his eyes. "Let them come. I want to see the power these demons you speak of hold!"

Lazu swallowed and looked around the room for support. Knowing how their leader could be when his interest was piqued, no one met his gaze. "My lord," he tried anyway, "I think you're underestimating the danger they will present. And with our focus on eliminating the rest of Akatsuki…"

"No matter who they are, if they want to mess with us they will taste some of this!" The Raikage smashed his fist into the wall beside him, crushing the support pillar and sending pieces of the wall flying everywhere. Lazu crouched and tried to make himself as small a target for falling debris as possible, but everyone else in the room just rolled their eyes and sighed.

"Besides," the Raikage continued, "we have our own demon for them to contend with. Let's see them try and attack us!"

***

"What do you think they've been talking about for the last hour?" Kankuro wondered aloud. He and Temari were standing at the top of the cliffs leading into Suna. Below them, a team of twelve ninja they had roused from their normal posts waited in the pass.

Temari put her hands on her hips and deliberately turned away from the street were Gaara and Fuki had been speaking. Half an hour ago they had rushed into the administration building and they hadn't heard from him since.

"He'll let us know what going on when he can." She said, trying to sound indifferent and failing miserably. "I just hope he does it soon. Staring at this minor sandstorm is boring."

Kankuro glanced up at the swirling sands just outside of the village and frowned. "Hey, don't you think that it's bad luck, this storm kicking up all of a sudden right now?"

Before Temari could answer, one of the sentries they had ringing the cliffs landed next to them. "There's a huge chakra source just outside the village!" he said swiftly.

"What?" Temari exclaimed. "How did someone get so close without you sensing sooner?"

"I don't know." the man swallowed. "But it will be here any minute and…"

"No, she's already here." Kankuro said and pointed.

A figure was walking out of the sandstorm barely one hundred yards from the gates. She was dressed mostly in brown leathers, with loose pants tucked into darker brown boots that pulled up puffs of sand as she walked. Tan sleeves that looked separate from her shirt opened to a point over the back of her hands, where she wore a pair of leather gloves. Her auburn hair was cut in a flat line falling over her forehead with a longer lock reaching to her neck in front of each ear. A long ponytail curled out of a decorated bandana tied over the back of her head.

She wore no obvious weapons besides a long knife in a sheath behind her hip. A ninja headband was tied over her waist, but the dark sunburst it depicted was unfamiliar as any village they could think of.

"Hey, you!" one of the jonin in the pass called to her. "Who are you? State your business!"

The mysterious woman smiled and took a deep breath. Mist poured from her mouth as she exhaled in a rush, quickly obscuring everything around the pass from sight. The sand ninja on guard shouted in surprise and those on the cliff heard the sound of weapons being drawn.

"Come on!" Temari shouted and leaped off the wall, Kankuro and the sentry at her heels. But she wasn't halfway to the ground before the screams started. They rose out of the mists sharply, not one at a time but in a chorus, as if all of the guards were being attacked at the same time. But the time she landed, the screams had nearly stopped and she could hear no sounds of fighting.

A figure stumbled out of the fog, clutching at his slit throat. He half fell in her direction, eyes pleading. "I was…nowhere…near..." he wheezed. "How…did…" The man collapsed and didn't move again.

Temari unbound her giant fan and whipped it at the mist, thinking to clear the battlefield first. But the mist just swirled in a slow circle instead of blowing out. _Hrmph…don't underestimate my wind!_ she thought, gripping her fan tighter and pouring twice as much chakra into it. She spun in a tight circle and unleashed a mighty stream of air that nearly carried her off balance. Almost reluctantly, the mist slowly pulled back and dissipated into the air. Eleven bodies were revealed scattered around the pass where they had fled or gathered when the mist had fallen, but the mysterious shinobi was gone.

"Where did…" Temari started, but a sudden exploding pain in her chest choked off the rest of her question. Painfully, she looked down at the small tip of steel poking out from just below her neck.

The strange woman whispered into her ear from behind. "Now, that's not very nice. I wasn't finished with that jutsu." She pulled her knife back out, and Temari crumpled to the ground.

"Temari!" Kankuro screamed, flinging his arms wide and calling upon his chakra strings. The wrapped bundle on his back exploded and revealed itself to be his faithful puppet Crow, which he launched at the shinobi standing over his sister's prone form. Spikes dripping with poison popped out of the puppet's mouth and wrists as it closed the distance.

The woman smiled and flipped the knife over so she was carrying it point down in her fist. "Really? You're going to come at me with these?" Her first two blazingly fast strikes knocked the puppet's arms wide and she ducked moments before the head detached and launched itself over her shoulder. She tucked forward and closed in on the puppet's main body.

_Got you,_ Kankuro thought in victory as he twitched his finger, activating the hidden blades along the inside of the puppet's arms. The next move would wrap those arms around the woman, where he could slice her to ribbons.

Rather than fleeing from the sprung trap, the woman stabbed her blade into the puppet's chest. "Puppets and fans... where I come from, every novice knows how to use these. You will never catch me with such toys." So saying, she ripped her knife out, revealing the puppet's delicate innards.

***

Gaara's head snapped up from the table as the first scream echoed in through the door. He took a running leap and was outside before the second scream joined the first.

"Lord Kazikage, no! This is what they want!" Fuki called after him, but he was already gone.

Several jonin fell into line with Gaara as he ran, but he waved them back. Whatever was up ahead, it promised a fight and he didn't want anyone to get caught up in his attacks by accident. The screams had stopped and Gaara couldn't tell if that was a good thing.

He arrived at the pass and froze, taking in the scene in a glance and immediately wishing he hadn't. His ninja were lying everywhere, each with a slashed throat or stabbed chest. Temari lay closest, bleeding from an ugly hole between her breasts. Kankuro was curled up a little further away in a steadily growing pool of blood. His favorite puppet Crow was cast not too far away, a large hole ripped into its middle. He couldn't tell if any of them were breathing.

And in the center of it all, clearly waiting for him, was a strange kunoichi. She was sitting on a body which he recognized as one of the villages chakra sensing sentries, and she was cleaning a bloody knife on his clothes.

"Who are you?" Gaara demanded. Without giving away what he was doing, he started channeling into the sand around her.

"You can call me Kizutsu." She answered, standing and adopting a fighting stance. "And are you the Kazikage?"

"I am." Without any warning he rose his cupped hand and the sand around Kizutsu swirled to life. Caught off guard, she barely had time to react before she was covered from head to toe in a thick layer of sand. The ball rose into the air on a pillar of sand until Garra was satisfied that he had her safely away from any outside forces. He could feel her moving around in there, but he knew that she couldn't escape.

"Never invade my village." he said calmly, crushing his fist. "Sand Cof-"

A sudden sharp pain cut him off in mid jutsu. His eyes opened in shock at the large gash that had opened on his palm as he was squeezing it. _But…how did this happen?_ he wondered, frozen at the sight of his own blood.

Of course, the breaking of his attention caused his control of the sand to lapse. In an explosion of grit, Kizutsu burst from the sand coffin and sped amazingly fast at him. Flat footed though he was, Gaara still managed to raise a wall of sand between him and her blade scant inches away. Kizutsu's knife, however, stabbed in and out of the sand as if the wall had been made of water. The wall collapsed as she pulled back, and Gaara clutched at his bleeding shoulder.

"What…kind of a blade is that?" he asked.

She smirked and fainted forward, dodging the grasping sand that sucked at her feet, and then leaped clear over his head to land at his back. Gaara anticipated the move, and was already collecting a huge pile of sand. As she landed and spun to stab him, the pile took on the form of his Shukaku no Tate, a large body with outstretched arms and head made of condensed sand that was his greatest defense. _Even if your knife can break it, the blade's not nearly long enough to reach though,_ he thought as he turned to face her.

But rather than break off her attack, Kizutsu pressed forward and angled her strike to stab downward. The knife sank its full eight inches into the Shukaku no Tate's chest with hardly any resistance and time seemed to freeze. After an endless moment, Kizutsu pulled her knife out of the hole she had carved and stepped back. A thin trickle of sand poured out from the hole, steadily increasing in size and speed as the jutsu began to sag. With a hiss the Shukaku no Tate collapsed to reveal Gaara on his knees, clutching at a bloody hole in his chest.

Barely able to breath and wracked with unfamiliar pain, Gaara barely reacted as she walked up and placed her knife at his throat. With the flat of her blade she lifted his chin until they were looking eye to eye.

"I…will not reveal...the pearl..." Gaara managed.

"Is that so?" Kizutsu cut in with a pout. "Well, that's quite alright, you don't need to tell me anyway. I can tell where that is. But there's something else you have that I need, before someone interrupts us." With that, she jerked the knife roughly across his exposed throat.

***

Ao twitched and stepped away from the table. The Mizukage watched him as he stared at the far wall and unfocused his normal eye. She knew that he had sensed something and waited for him to explain what he saw.

Chojuro wasn't as patient. "What is it? Is something out there?"

"Let me concentrate!" Ao snapped. "There's this huge chakra signature that appeared quickly to the west, but now it seems to have stopped moving just outside of the village."

A ninja burst into the room as he finished speaking and quickly gave his report. "There is a strange ninja at the village gates, demanding a meeting with the Mizukage." The guard gulped. "He said…he said that he had important information regarding the village of Demons."

The Mizukage put down the map of the region they had been planning with and put a hand over her left pocket. She could feel the lump of the pearl Jouroba had given her not even an hour ago press into her palm. She had promised him she would keep it safe.

_So, _she thought, _I am already challenged with keeping my promise._

Aloud, she said, "Well, let's not be an ungracious host. Tell the man I will meet him, outside at the amphitheatre. Let's hear what he has to say."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Mizukage usually could tell a lot about a man from a glance and this time was no different. As the stranger was lead into the room, she could tell immediately that he was powerful. She didn't need Ao whispering into her ear that the man's chakra was lighting up the air around him like a bonfire to tell her that.

The stranger was clad in a full-body, dark grey robe that hung loosely from his shoulders and opened to the left. The robe hung an inch above his feet, which were bare but for a worn pair of sandals, and the sleeves were several inched longer than his hands. A folded black cloth was wrapped up one arm, across his back and over his head to form a hood, and down his other arm. The shadow cast by the hood hid most of his features, but she could see his chin was covered by a pointed beard. He walked with his back straight, glancing neither left nor right at the armed guards who flanked him, even when two of them shoved him the last few feet.

"Welcome to Kiri, the mist village. I am the Mizukage." She quickly introduced her associates. "And may I ask your name?"

"Ah…so you're the kage…" the man mused, and then bowed his head slightly. "My name is Daga Yemar. Please call me Daga. I bear information that is vital for you to hear."

"First, explain why you are sheathed head to toe in chakra!" Ao barked, stepping protectively to the Mizukage's side.

"You must have a Byakugan, then." Daga said, turning to him. "Perhaps it's just how Awesome I am?"

Ao nearly snarled at him, and Daga held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, joking aside. If I am shrouded in chakra, understand that it isn't under my control. Ninja where I come from need to be ready for battle at any moment. It's just a reflex on my part."

The Mizukage sensed something false in his words and glanced around the room. The amphitheatre was a round, open room about fifty feet in diameter. The guards who had lead Daga in had remained, leaving ten ninja in the room, besides Ao and Chojiro. Still, she relaxed her stance on her heels and cocked her head at him curiously.

"And where is it that you are from?" she asked.

"Why, I am from the Demons village." Daga lifted his arms and pushed the sleeve on his left arm up. Lying crosswise on an armband was a headband made from a dark, shiny metal. It depicted a spiral growing out of the center for about two rings, which was surrounded by tongues of flame in a sunburst. A quick glance at the others showed that the village symbol was as unfamiliar to them as it was to her. Many of them nodded when they caught her eye and reached for their weapons.

"Now hold on." Daga said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I came to deliver a message. Don't you want to hear it out?"

"Perhaps you should start at the beginning, then." The Mizukage said, signaling her guards to lower their arms. "We already know some of it. You are here for the Eleventh's pearl."

"Which you have there in your pocket." Daga noted her surprised expression. "Anything Eleven D. touches has a special resonance that can be tracked, if you know how. And we are very good at finding the Eleven D.'s toys.

"You see, Eleven D. used to live in this world. He was a powerful warlord who commanded an impressive army of followers, with ten extremely talented ninja generals to lead them called 'the Ten Deaths'. He called himself 'the Eleventh Death' and set forth to conquer the surrounding countries. But the newly formed nations of Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, Wind, and Lightning combined their forces and drove his armies into the ocean."

Ao held up his hand to interrupt. "We know this; it was the first major obstacle the five nations faced after the Great Ninja Wars. The Eleventh Death was defeated, and he and his generals were all executed."

"But the Eleventh wasn't killed, was he?" The Mizukage guessed. "You speak of him as if he were still alive."

"He calls himself The Eleven D. Billionth now." Daga said, his smile evident in his words. "I don't know how you tell the story over here, but he is very much alive. He possesses a unique technique that made it impossible for any of your forbearers to stop him permanently, though apparently they could contain him for a while. He can take anything he can imagine and make it a reality by rewriting the fabric of the universe itself around him. I don't know what it was that was used to finally bring him down, but whatever it was could only delay his abilities. His death was out of their power.

"So instead they struck him a deal. The Eleven D. wanted to rule the world, but without his followers he couldn't take this one. So the first kages suggested he use his power to take a portion of the world itself and…fold it away from the rest. He would get to rule his own little kingdom any way he wanted to, as long as he took it away from this world and never came back. Since the Sagikage of the Wood country was the only kage slain in the battle, the Wood country was 'volunteered' as the Eleven D.'s new kingdom."

"But there is no Wood country." Chojiro looked around the room questioningly. "Right?"

"The Eleven D. took the memory of it with him when he left." Daga assured him. "It used to be just south of this country. There's a large ocean and a few scattered islands where it used to be now. But back to the pearls. All five pearls belonged to a necklace the Eleven D. wore, and he gave it to the kage's before he left as a sign of his word. But because of how long he had been wearing them, a little of his chakra rubbed off on them and each pearl contained a bit of his reality altering power. Demon's village has need for their power, so we returned to collect them."

"A fancy story." Ao scoffed. "But there are too many holes for me to believe it. Not the first of which is that if all five villages possess something that powerful, why hasn't anyone used it yet?"

"I would suspect because the pearls power has dimmed over the years." Daga shrugged. "Azman, the kage of Demons, gave instructions as to how to revive them, but even still all five pearls need to be together for them to work."

The Mizukage put a hand on Ao's shoulder to calm him down. "I suppose the glow the pearl emitted was a warning that someone had crossed over from the Eleventh's world, breaking the original agreement. But that only happened little over an hour ago. Did you appear here in the water country, to have arrived so fast?"

"No, but I thought you would know better than to ask me that." Daga said. "I have no intention to betray my village's new location. Suffice to say that we have ways of traveling fast. And I wasn't the only one who left the village when we arrived. As soon as we appeared, the three strongest ninja in Demons were dispatched to a different capitol. All three should have arrived by now."

***

The man leaned on one knee over the cliff face and looked down. "Hmm…looks like the whole village is expecting me."

The man was dressed in a pair of loose black pants with gold trim cinched at the waist and at the ankles. A green, short-sleeved vest hung open over his muscular chest and extended at the back down to his knees. The word 'Fire' was engraved in kanji on the vest's back. Strings of swirling, black tattoos wound around the man's neck and abdomen, with another strand circled his upper arms and wrists. A black bandana was tied over the man's hair, keeping all but a few loose strands from his eyes as he looked down at the village of Iwa.

From his vantage point at the top of one of the surrounding mountains, it looked like every ninja in the village had been pressed into duty. Ranks of ninja lined the village walls, with even more bunched together at key points. Scouts and messengers leapt about the rooftops and not a single shopkeeper or playing child was to be seen. The man had no doubt that his arrival had been noticed.

"Well, so much for the covert approach." He muttered, and then walked back to the clearing where his giant falcon waited. He patted the side of the summoned creature. "You had better circle the village for a bit and wait for my signal. It's about to get very uncomfortable down there."

He waited until the falcon was airborne before kneeling down and placing a hand on the earth. After a moment to collect his thoughts and calm his breathing, he started to channel his chakra into the ground.

***

"We also sent out teams to the remaining two villages," Daga continued, "but I don't know whether they've arrived yet. Only teams of two, though. We don't have too many active ninja in Demons right now, and we thought it unwise to leave the village completely unguarded."

***

"Nothing to report." Fabura said into his mike, then switched it off and collapsed back onto the bench. "Gah, I hate guard duty."

"Not my problem that you got drafted into keeping me company." Hikaru muttered. He rubbed at his temples, trying to quell the inevitable headache he got from extended chakra sensing.

Fabura snorted and lay back against the wall, chewing contently on a piece of straw. "I wonder if we really are going to be attacked. I wouldn't put it past the Raikage to order an emergency alert just so he could catch anyone not at their post."

"Then you had better snap to attention." Saki snapped, slouching down the last few steps from the lookout post's top floor. He spared a glance out the panoramic window behind Hikaru before glaring tiredly at Fabura. "He'd punish us all if he caught you laying about on the job. And whether it's a drill or not, I won't have someone under my command falling asleep!"

Fabura smiled and straightened on the bench. "As if anyone could race you to sleep. Besides, nothing is happening. Right, Hikaru?"

"That's…right." Hikaru muttered. Something was wrong. His headache had just vanished with no warning. "I don't sense…anything?"

The others were watching him curiously when a pair of hands clamped onto the sides of Hikaru's head from behind. With a sickening twist Hikaru's neck was broken, and he toppled forward to show a ninja dressed all in black balancing on the balcony. The only points of color on him were a pair of silver bracers on the back of his forearms that curled over the back of his hands and knuckles, and a darkly shining headband tied over his forehead. Fabura and Saki were frozen, staring at this unexpected enemy.

The ninja slowly put a gloved finger to his lips and whispered, "Shhhh."

Fabura was the first to leap into action. He hopped onto the back of the bench and sent his hands flying through a complicated strand of hand signals. At the last he clasped his hands together with both index fingers out and pointing at the enemy, who was still watching placidly on the balcony. But the blast of electricity Fabu expected didn't come. He stared at his hands in horror, realizing only then how completely he and Saki were trapped.

Saki, meanwhile, had drawn his katana from its sheath on his back and leapt at the intruder. But halfway across the room he was suddenly halted as a thick chain flew out from the top of the stairs and wrapped around his left leg. The chain snapped taunt, flipping Saki sharply in the air to crash shoulder first onto the hard floor.

A second ninja leaped after the chain and landed feet first on Saki's back. This one was dressed in a pair of dark pants and a yellow and green jacket decorated with a flame pattern. Both jacket and jeans had tears in various places and were slashed at the cuffs. He had dark skin and darker brown hair cut short, but with a long strand falling down either side of his forehead. He also had a gold earring dangling in each ear and three long braids held together by beads coming out the base of his head which clacked whenever he turned his head.

The other end of the chain was wrapped around his left arm, which made swirling motions as he landed to wrap in the slack. In his other hand was a wickedly long punching dagger whose edges glowed with a sickly green light.

"Easier than a D-rank!" the newcomer crowed as he slammed the katar into Sagi's back, severing his spine. Saki jerked a couple of times before laying still. Steam rose from the wound on his back.

"Saki!" Fabura screamed, drawing his own pair of short blades and launching himself at the ninja straddling his friend. But the first ninja was suddenly right in front of him, knocking his arms wide with a sweep of his metal-clad arms. Before Fabura even had time to register his presence, a fist slammed mercilessly into his stomach. A second blow landed on the back of his neck as he hunched over, driving him into the floor hard enough to break his nose.

The last thing he heard before a boot landed on his unprotected head was the laughing ninja chuckle, "Seven lookout posts down, only two more to go!"

***

"And who was dispatched to our village?" the Mizukage asked. "One of the teams of two?"

"No." Daga answered. The smile was back in his voice, and the Mizukage tensed even though both his arms lay unthreateningly at his side. "The ninja that was ordered to Kiri is actually the head of Demons oldest clan. I have no doubt that he could slip right through your village's defenses."

"And who is-" Ao started, but froze as the seals he wore on his earrings suddenly wrapped around his head and covered his right eye. Half a second later, a shuriken skipped off the seals and buried itself all the way into his left eye. Ao cried out in shock and pain and collapsed backwards.

The surprise in the room was total. The Mizukage was the most hit by it, as she had been watching Daga closely as he spoke. He hadn't moved an inch when Ao was attacked. _Was it someone else?_ she thought, quickly looking around in a moment of doubt. But her eyes snapped back to Daga as he spoke again.

"I was the one ordered to take this village." Daga said calmly, then crouched and spun on the balls of his feet. Shuriken flew from his sleeves in all directions as he spun.

Her guards leaped to attack or dodged away from the assault, but no matter how they moved the spinning blades seemed to always find their mark, cutting into necks and hamstrings and armpits. A couple sped directly at the Mizukage, but she spat a _youton_ that splattered around them and arrested their forward movement. She ducked past the blob and was about to launch a counter attack when Chojiro blew past her.

Chojiro had taken several hits to the arms and chest, but he battled past the pain and swung his great, two-handed sword at the cloaked assailant. His chakra blazed through the sword, sharpening and taking the shape of a giant claymore around the main blade.

"You said you were just a messenger!" he shouted, his great blade slicing at his enemy's neck.

"I am," Daga said calmly, ducking to avoid the initial cut, "but I never said what kind of a message I was delivering." His hand shot up and he hooked a finger into one of the chakra filtering holes along his swords length. The sword halted and no matter how Chojiro strained against the handle, he couldn't budge it an inch.

"Something I've noticed," Daga continued, "is that people over here will believe anything that they're told. Even if it's coming from the vilest villain imaginable, you will readily believe whatever he says."

With that he flicked his finger and the sword swung back through the air and slammed into Chojiro's chest. Even though he had managed to erase the chakra that had surrounded it, the blade still cut into him and the force carried him clear across the room.

The Mizukage's first instinct was to go to his aid, but she knew that she had to isolate this dangerous enemy. Too many of her people lay bleeding already. Coming in low, she tackled a surprised Daga from behind and propelled him towards the wall. She felt his hand clawing at her shirt, and then she slammed him into the wall hard enough to send cracks arcing out of it. Leaping back to make space, she tilted her head back and spat an enormous stream of _youton _into the air above them. The mud-like liquid hit the arc of the wall and rebounded, forming a dome shaped wall around them. She had poured more earth chakra than fire into this batch, so it hardened almost immediately.

Daga huffed out a couple of breaths, and then took in his new surroundings. "That's awfully nice of you, sealing away all your allies. That will make this much easier. I'll need that pearl now."

_Over my dead body,_ the Mizukage thought viciously. She breathed deep and prepared to blow out _futton_, her corrosive mist, but suddenly she felt something close around her neck. The jutsu lodged in her throat as her airways were crushed. She tried to raise her hands to her neck, but something unseen pinched her wrists. Her hands were forced behind her back as she fell to her knees, trying in vain to breathe around the invisible hands at her throat.

"But I need more than just the pearl." Daga said, sliding over to her and slipping a hand into her pocket, palming the pearl. "I told you that they needed to be revived, right? But what I didn't tell you was how we do it."

Daga's flipped his hand out of his long sleeve and held it up. A shuriken shone brightly in the closed space. "It needs to be bathed in the kage's lifeblood." The shuriken descended.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Katar caught the descending katana on his chain and twisted, wrapping it tight in the links. With a twist, he jerked the sword out of the ninja's hands and flipped it over his shoulder. He leapt forward and looped the chain around his enemy's neck. The ninja started choking as Katar pulled the nose tight, his hands futilely pulling at the chain.

"Does everyone in this village have a personal sword?" Katar asked rhetorically, not really expecting his victim to answer. "It almost reminds me of home. Hey Pfil, how high do you think this makes my arena rank?"

Over his shoulder, he saw Pfil dusting his hands as he rose from checking the two people he had taken down. He had put his black baseball cap back on, the rim pulled down to partially cover his headband. Pfil shrugged and gestured at the man Katar was choking.

Katar looked down and saw that the man had stopped struggling. "This makes the third patrol we've run across since we finished with the sentries." He said, letting the man fall and wrapping the chain back around his arm. "How do they keep finding us? We'll be the last one back if we don't stop fighting every ten feet of the way."

He started to walk in the direction that they had been going when Pfil put a restraining hand on his shoulder. Pfil tapped his eyes and pointed in the opposite direction.

"You found something else?" Katar asked, "What is it?"

Pfil glared at him and Katar grinned evilly. He was perfectly aware that Pfil rarely talked, but he loved trying to trap him into conversation.

"All right, let me look. Knew I shouldn't have gone legacy this time around." he muttered, frowning. "What the…the pearl is that way? But that means the kage doesn't have it on him. Hmm…OK, you go after the pearl. The kage is mine."

***

"So much commotion over such a small thing." Killer Bee hummed, flipping the pearl over his knuckles. Coming to a decision, he hopped to his feet and slipped it into his trouser pocket. "Well, that it. I'm out of here."

"Didn't your brother tell you to wait here for the invaders?" the deep voice of the eight-tailed beast, his personal demon, echoed inside his mind. Mentally, Bee envisioned the hachibi crouched behind him, the bull's octopus-like tails twisting and twining as the demon's eyes bored into his back. The familiar image comforted Bee rather that frightened him, he had long gotten used to the creature that shared his body.

Bee turned to the railing of the roof and looked down at the village gates below him. "What invaders? That's no one coming. He probably made up the whole thing to keep me interested enough to stay."

"I can't deny that there's something strange about the orb." The hachibi growled pensively. "Something almost… familiar…"

"The open road beckons me!" Bee shouted grandly. "It is a waste of my many talents to lie about here, waiting! What's stopping us from leaving this second?"

"You are going to be the death of me." The hachibi stated without a hint of irony.

"No doubt!" Bee cried, leaping onto the railing. He looked around for the inevitable guards his brother had sent to keep an eye on him and frowned. "Hey, where are the guys who were on top the gates? I thought there were a few guys on patrol."

"Maybe if you had been watching instead of writing those… arrggh!" The eight-tails growled in sudden pain and shook its head to try and dismiss it. Suddenly, Bee felt his connection to it start to fade.

"Hey, long-face, what's up with you?" Bee asked, turning to glance back at the hachibi even though the beast wasn't really there. A glint was his only warning that someone was flying through the air at his back; he wouldn't have seen it at all if he hadn't turned. His arm came up instinctively to block and pushed the ninja's fist to the side. The punch went wide of his head, but the grooves on his attacker's gauntlet tore bloody furrows into his arm. Bee leapt off the rail over the enemy and landed several yards off.

He spun and quickly sized up his assailant. Black shirt, black pants, black baseball cap pulled down over a headband. Metal sheathed the back of his hands and arms, and a short sword was belted tightly to his back. He had caught the rail right where Bee had been perched and swung down so he was straddling the wall sideways, ready to leap.

"Now, hold on. I don't think you know who you're dealing with, here." Bee said, raising his hands to stall another attack. _Hey, what's going on with you?_ he thought to his demon, but the hachibi just bellowed in pain. Bee noticed with surprise that the demon's voice was really faint, as if it were roaring on the other side of a thick wall.

"I'm the demon of the mountains." Bee continued, trying to buy time to figure out what happened to the eight-tails. "Killer Bee, the world famous rapper and-"

The black-clad ninja propelled himself forward, spinning at the last second to land at Bee's feet instead of crashing into him. His fists flew out almost faster that Bee could follow, and he had to work at keeping them from landing.

"You know, it's considered polite to introduce yourself first, stupid." Bee muttered. He tried to call upon the eight-tails power and sheathe himself in demonic chakra, but like the eight-tails itself the chakra wouldn't come. He didn't even try to summon his own, fearing that the same thing would occur.

Gasps were accompanying the hachibi's cries of pain, but it kept up its screaming unabated. The creature had never been cut off from the primal chakra that fed it's being before, and it was not enjoying this new experience. _Aw, shut up and let me think!_ Bee though irritably.

If chakra was sealed off, then taijutsu would decide the duel. "You sure can land a blow, but why don't we settle this with our blades?" he proposed, dropping and sweeping his leg out in a circle. His opponent was forced to leap back to avoid the trip, and as Bee rose he drew all seven of his short swords and flipped them into the air. He caught them at odd angles, not just in each hand but in his elbows, knees, armpit, and even the crook of his neck. He balanced on one foot and waited for his silent foe to make a move.

In answer, the stranger drew his owe blade and charged in. Bee spun on his toes, but the ninja slipped into a hole in Bee's attack and stabbed at his chest. Bee flipped backwards, catching the sword with the blade clenched in his knee. Bee jerked his arm, sending the sword from his armpit flipped at the man's cap, but it was batted out of the air by his opponent's free hand.

Bee was already in motion, spinning through the blind side created by his thrown sword's shadow. He angled his body to stab sideways with three of his blades, and his opponent flipped up over the strike. Bee jerked his neck to the left, thinking he got him as his enemy's head fell into line with the sword in his teeth. But again the man's left hand shot out and Bee saw the inside of the palm and fingers were similarly covered in loose metal plates. The ninja grabbed the blade and squeezed, crushing the blade and pulling out two off Bee's molars as the hilt was torn free. They spun apart as he landed to assess each other.

Bee spat out a bloody wad and flipped backwards to the roof of the building next to theirs. His opponent tried to follow, but he threw half of his remaining swords at him, driving the stranger back. Bee landed on the balls of his feet and reeled as his chakra suddenly returned to him in a rush. Startled, he flexed his hands and sent an experimental shock of electricity over his hands. The small lightning flashed, and he smiled as he realized the eight-tails had stopped screaming.

"Release me, Bee!" the hachibi roared. "Let me squash the annoying bug for causing me this pain!"

_Not yet, I think I got this,_ he thought back. "Yo, I've figure out your trick!" he called out at his enemy as he straightened up. "You are releasing some kind of field around you that seals off a guy's chakra! But it only extends about ten feet or so from your body and it appears you can't use any techniques either!" Bee was only guessing with that last part, but the scowl on his enemy's face told him he had guessed right.

But the smirk left his face as the ninja lifted his hand to show the pearl resting between two fingers. Bee glanced down at the tear in his pants where his pocket used to be and wondered when during the skirmish he had made the cut.

"I bet if I can just keep back from you, I can take you out with some well placed tosses." he growled, hoping to take the smile out of his opponent's eyes. The man's silence was really starting to get to him. He raised one of his remaining swords and sent his chakra into it. Lightning surged up the blade and crackled as he lined up his first throw.

He paused as his enemy stood up calmly from his crouch and flipped his sword point down in his hand. He folded his hands together in a hand symbol Bee immediately recognized.

"Release." Pfil said calmly. The air around him seemed to pulse as his jutsu dissipated, and then in a burst of light and speed he was in front of Bee, swinging. In a splash of red, Bee's world descended into pain.

***

The Tsuchikage was deep in discussion of patrol routes when waves of intense heat washed over him. Startled, for the coming night had been a cool one, he was the first to run outside to try and locate where the heat was coming from. So he had a clear view from the administration building's north balcony as Mount Fubaki suddenly burst into flames.

"What?" he cried in shock, unable to tear his eyes from the sight. The flames soon vanished, as there were not many trees dotting the mountain's side to provide kindling, but heat continued to pour out from it. The entire mountain seemed to be wavering in and out of focus and it took the kage's stunned eyes a few moments to realize it was getting _smaller_!

Then it occurred to him that Mount Fubaki was right on the village's border, and he sprung into action.

"Get every chunin and higher to the north wall!" he shouted, breaking the hypnotic spell that had fallen over his lieutenants as they had run to the balcony. "I need all civilians on that side of the village evacuated to the other side. Any ninja with water chakra are to watch for fires to spread on nearby buildings. Hurry, the attack has already begun!"

The Tsuchikage eyed the stairs as his men ran for them and knew that his old bones couldn't handle them in enough time. He pulled himself over the rail and called upon his chakra to conjure a pair of small plates of hardened space on his feet. Supporting himself on his will alone, he floated down through the air to a building on the village's edge.

Several of the buildings had already caught on fire and as he landed, this building caught as well. Not having time, the Tsuchikage simply hardened a disk around him the size of the roof and crushed it to the roof. With the inside of the building burning underneath, the disk couldn't suffocate the flames, but all the Tsuchikage needed was for the supports to hold the disk in place so he could concentrate on more important jutsu.

He stepped across his newly fire-free roof and surveyed the mountain. It wasn't an illusion, the mountain was shrinking. In fact it was melting, rock walls that had stood the test of time for centuries becoming lava and sloughing off. The heat was so unbearable as to make it hard to breathe, but the wave of lava was almost at the village and the Tsuchikage had to act fast.

Calling upon his jutsu, he concentrated on gathering as much of his mental focus into his hands. A cube slowly gathered in his palms, stretching into a rectangle reluctantly. The Tsuchikage released his hands and the rectangle expanded dramatically, becoming a thirty foot tall, transparent wall the length of the village. It slammed down in front of the first houses just as the lava arrived, splashing impotently against it. A cheer went up from the ninja around him and many broke off from watching the lava pile against the wall to address the other burning buildings.

"Loud whippersnappers." The Tsuchikage growled, rubbing his temples. Despite his void jutsu being completely immune to damage to a degree, he still felt a little feedback from it. The lava was hot enough to get the inside of his head warm, and that combined with the waves of heat around him was starting one giant of a headache.

"Hey, there's something out there!" someone shouted, and the Tsuchikage looked up from his massaging. A dark spec was traveling down the mountain and he squinted to make it out. Incredibly, it resolved into a man ridding a boulder down the lava flow. He surfed across the uneven stream right up to the wall, where his boulder ground to a stop against it. The man stared intently at the imposing barrier and raised a hand to touch it.

_Probably never seen anything like it and wondering how to get it out of his way_. The Tsuchikage almost chuckled, everyone had the same reaction upon seeing his jutsu for the first time. He was about to gesture for his men to take up positions on the wall when the stranger's hand touched the wall _and went through!_ The Tsuchikage felt him as a bright pinprick of fire against the dull heat of the lava and he clutched his head in agony. The man was so hot he was burning through his jutsu! Like a coal plucked straight from a fire and dropped on a sheet of ice! In no time the man had pushed a hole through his wall and it took all the kage's control not to let the jutsu collapse.

A platoon of men leapt down to confront him and got the first good look at the man. The flame-like tattoos that circled the man's body were glowing a cheery-red and he was emitting such heat that none of them could bring themselves to approach him.

"Hey, you wouldn't be able to tell me where the kage is, would you?" the man asked. "I'm not used to invading without getting a spy report first."

In response, the platoon leader stole his hand into his belt pouch and threw several kunai at him. The kunai seemed to slow as they encountered the fiery aura shrouding the man and he casually swatted them out of the air. They fell to the ground with a plop and melted into small pools of molten liquid.

"Guess not then." The stranger said cheerfully, raising his right hand palm out. The platoon leader saw that a summoning circle had been tattooed on the man's palm, but the inside of the circle was blank. A symbol was also tattooed on each of his fingertips and his fingernails were each tipped with an inward curving spike.

The man bent his middle finger and pierced the spike on the middle of his palm, welling up a small drop of blood. As he withdrew it there was a burst of the familiar summoning smoke, and for a split second the leader saw the stream of oil the man had summoned before the stream hit the man's aura. A great stream of fire raced out of his palm and slammed into the leader and his men, scattering those it didn't consume immediately. Strangely, the summoning smoke didn't dissipate, and the leader's last thought before the fire caught him was that this man must be able to hold open summoning portals indefinitely.

Redfire twisted his head to the side and located the direction the pearl rested in. He walked calmly down the street, turning his flamethrower on anyone who got close. One ninja managed to get under his stream, but Redfire grabbed him in his left hand and pressed him to the wall. As the ninja squirmed under the unbearable heat, Redfire hooked his left pinky into the circle tattooed on his other palm and summoned a sheet of exploding tags to plaster the unfortunate man. His aura ignited the tags as he walked away.

Finding the building he wanted, he shut off his right hand's portal and leapt to the roof. Just as he landed a giant block of whatever the wall had been made of crashed into his perch. He spun to the side to avoid most of the blow and flipped over the roof's edge to see a short, old man panting with his arms stretched out.

"Are you this village's kage?" he asked. "Look, just hand me the pearl and we can get this over with, nice and easy." He held his hand out and the kage looked like he would accept it for a moment. Then the old man's eyes flicked to the right and Redfire spun to see a large man land heavily on the roof.

"Lord Tsuchikage, get back!" the man bellowed, and then opened his mouth wider than Redfire would have thought possible. A rocky hand reached out and grabbed the ground, pulling a large body completely out of the man's mouth. The golem rose to its impressive ten feet as the fat ninja collapsed unconscious and it stomped towards him.

Redfire's left index finger jabbed into his palm as the golem approached and he held the swirling circle of smoke open long enough for about twenty bombs to spill forth at the giant's feet. He leapt as the bombs went off and the golem stumbled, landing on the creature's shoulder. Rather than summon something new, Redfire amped up his aura and simply melted his hand through the golem's head. The golem shuddered violently as his hand sank down the thing's neck into its chest, and then it collapsed into rubble.

"Akatsuchi!" the Tsuchikage screamed, cupping both his hands into a circle. A rod of solid void speared out of his palms at the assailant as he landed on his feet, but Redfire just let it hit him. Like a stick of butter slamming into a hot knife, the jutsu split and parted to either side of him. The Tsuchikage cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching at his splitting head. Around them, the disk he had placed on the roof started to dissipate and several cries of alarm from the streets below them hinted that the giant wall was suffering the same.

Redfire tapped his chin and surveyed the flurry of activity around them as ninja swarmed to their location. "Better give these people something to do besides crash my party." he said thoughtfully. His left thumb and right ring finger dug into their respective circles and he clasped his hands together. In a swirl of smoke, he lifted his newly summoned rocket above his head and launched it into the sky. The napalm he had summoned to coat the rocket's side ignited when the rocket erupted fifty feet up, raining gobs of burning napalm all over the buildings around them. The area was quickly consumed in a roaring inferno.

The Tsuchikage coughed on smoke and tried to get to his feet. His vision swam around him and he couldn't catch his breath. All he could see were the crimson tattoos of the invader and he walked up to the old man and grabbed him by the front of his robes. The man lifted the Tsuchikage into the air and rooted around in his pockets until he found the pearl.

"Well, can't say it wasn't fun." the man said, pressing his impossibly hot left hand into the kage's chest. "But it's about time I was on my way. Thanks for the exercise." He flicked his left hand and summoned a couple of bombs into the old man's lap. He held the Tsuchikage in the air as the flames on the buildings around them closed in and the fuses on the bombs were consumed in an instant.

***

"This is the 'hidden' leaf village?" Tikei said incredulously. "How is this village hidden? It's enormous!"

He leaned further over the branch and stared at the village they had been sent to attack. Though it seemed someone had beaten them to it, as most of the area was still in rubble. Despite the condition the rest of the village was in, the giant wall circling the village was still intact, as was the mountain range behind it. Tikei squinted at the giant faces that had been carved into those mountains and wondered again how this village could remain a secret.

"Just makes our job that much easier." Lupe reminded him, rubbing her hands in anticipation. "So… do we prepare the invasion or just attack?"

Tikei grinned evilly and pulled on his special glove. Blades nearly a foot long extended over the back of his hand above each finger and glinted in the fading light as he flexed his hand.

The careful route isn't really our style, is it?" he chuckled.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_I was promised demons and I get this?_ the Raikage thought to himself, glancing disdainfully at the man standing before him.

The man in question stood at the ready in the ruin of the doors he had burst through. He wore dark pants and a yellow jacket with green flames licking up the sides. His hair was cut short save for several braids at his back. He held a punching dagger in one hand and was swinging a length of chain that was wrapped around his other.

Of course, the Raikage couldn't let the act of destruction dealt to his doors go unchallenged. He stepped over the remains of his desk he had smashed to splinters in response and approached the intruder confidently.

"Where is the rest of your army," he growled, looming over the much shorter man, "or are you so arrogant to think one man enough to kill me?"

"The name's Katar." the intruder said smugly, holding up his namesake in salute. "And I'm all that's needed for this."

"Confident." The Raikage popped his neck and called up his chakra, sheathing his entire body in a layer of electricity. He shrugged out of his cloak and flexed his shoulder in anticipation. "I look forward to interrogating your village's secrets out of you."

"Heh, right back at you." Katar spun his chain suddenly at the kage's head and dived forward to stab at his unprotected chest. The Raikage didn't even bother blocking, allowing the chain to snap ineffectively against his head. He lined up his arm almost lazily as Katar's blade tried to cut through the kage's armor and snapped in half at the hilt.

"Nice try, but you shouldn't start something you can't finish." The Raikage said. In a burst of speed he hooked his blazing arm into his enemy's chest and threw him through the air to slam against the far wall. The lightning had carved a bloody hole into Katar's chest, leaving him helpless and dying.

At least, until his body disappeared in a puff of smoke. _Shadow clone,_ the Raikage thought, starting to turn around.

"Not bad advice, but this isn't my first season." Katar quipped, coming in hard at the kage's side. In punched his dagger, and this time it sank into the lightning armor with an angry sizzle. The Raikage leaped back before the cut could go deep and clapped his hand over the shallow wound. A trail of greenish smoke wafted up from the cut and he could feel a slight, continuous burn.

Across the room, Katar readied himself for another strike. Green flames licked about the edge of his dagger, every now and then spitting a spark that fell sizzling to the floor.

The Raikage sniffed the acrid smoke and huffed. "Acidic fire? Interesting move."

"You haven't seen anything yet!" Katar cried, whirling his chain above his head in a tight circle. More green flames coalesced in his hand and traveled up the length of his chain, leaving trails of heavy smoke rings in the air as Katar charged. He flipped the spinning chain to either side of him to disguise the angle it would strike from. Whenever the arc brought the chain too close to the floor it simply sheared through the stone, leaving a smoking and sparking furrow in his wake.

Predictably, his first strike was at the kage's left side, obviously thinking his missing arm would be a weakness. But even though the loss of his arm was still fresh, the Raikage had adapted his fighting style to compensate for it perfectly. He bent his left leg and tilted his whole body into the blow, dipping his stump so that the enormous armband could intercept the chain and knock it to the floor. The chain's speed and flames allowed it to cleave through the chakra armor, but not through the thick bands. The Raikage then leapt off his other leg and drove his shoulder towards his opponent.

Katar dropped to his knees beneath the kage's tackle and slipped skillfully to the side, trying to stay on his opponents left. His katar punched in quick, but delivered only another glancing blow before he had to leap away as the Raikage spun right, trying to backhand him. His hand hit nothing but air as Katar danced away from the swing. The kage continued the arc of his swing, shoving his hand straight into the floor and ripped up a chunk, flipping it at Katar before he could land. But around the chain came, eating through the impromptu missile and deflecting the closer half safely to the side.

Katar whipped the chain at the kage's feet in an attempt to wrap it around one, but the Kage leapt above it and came down running. Again Katar spun to the left, but the kage was one step ahead of him now. He pulled back from his charge at the last second and kicked out with his leg, catching his opponent above the knee. Lightning scorched straight through fabric and skin, searing a deep trough before Katar could get clear.

Katar knelt and clasped a hand over his bloody leg. "Oh, I am going to bingo you _SO _hard!" he snarled, ignoring the pain and rising to his feet. He dropped his punching dagger and grabbed his chain in both hand, whipping it all about him with abandon. The corrosive flames left deep grooves in the floor as it spun all about the Raikage, but to the kage's enhanced senses the chain seemed to be moving through water. He had no trouble dodging the wild swings and looked instead for an opening to attack.

He should have been watching his feet, for he wasn't Katar's target. As the kage's feinted to the right, his foot came down too hard on the damaged and weakened floor and went through. The kage's tried desperately to regain his footing, but the second of distraction was all Katar needed. Favoring his wounded leg, he leapt clear over the large man and looped his chain around the kage's neck.

The Raikage felt the chain tighten and knew he had only seconds. _Didn't think I'd have to use this,_ he thought as he called upon his armor's second form. Instantly, the lightning coursing over his body concentrated on the area of contact, his neck, and held the weapon a full two inches from his skin by sheer weight of chakra. Katar didn't relinquish the hold, gripping one end of the chain in each hand and straining to tighten his hold. He pumped green fires onto his weapon and mentally commanded them to travel down the chain.

The Raikage grunted as the flames licked at his face, but he diverted enough of his chakra from his neck to deflect the worst of it. What he didn't expect was the corrosive flames eating into the chain itself; specifically burning down to the layer of gunpowder Katar had woven into the chain's forging.

The chain exploded in a cloud of green fire and acid around the kage's head. His stage two armor, acting purely on instinct, pulsed over his head and shoulders to protect him from the worst of it, but the fires clung to his head and obstructed his vision. He reeled, choking on the toxic fumes as he wiped desperately at his eyes. A burning pain in his side told him that his opponent had taken advantage of his distraction to stab him with that damned dagger. The kage thrashed blindly with his good arm and grunted in satisfaction as he felt his fist connect with something.

He pulled in his chakra and sent it in a pulse about his head, blowing the stubborn flames bodily from his skin before letting his armor settle back into level one. He quickly scanned the room and was relieved to see he had thrown his assailant into the wall again, where he lay groaning. The kage's smile was short lived, as it pulled the burnt skin on his face painfully. He cracked his knuckles and stepped forward to finish his fallen opponent off, but a voice from his window halted him.

"I think he's run out of stamina for the day." the man leaning against his balcony said. He wore black pants and an open green vest. Tattoos circled the man's bare chest and arms, and he bent to breathe deeply from his cupped hands. The Raikage saw the glow of a cigarette between his cupped fingers as he breathed in, and the man's next words were accompanied by a cloud of smoke.

"Good thing I decided to stop by and see how you were doing. What happened to Pfil? He was with you, right?"

"C-Captain…" Katar said weakly, trying to rise from the floor.

"Stay down, I'll finish this." the stranger said, taking another drag from his hands. He turned to address the kage. "You don't have the pearl on you, but I sense it's on its way. I'll give you one chance to surrender to the inevitable."

In answer, the Raikage amped up his lightning armor and stepped forward threateningly. "I can take anything you can throw at me!" he declared proudly.

"Perhaps, but I've already defeated one kage today. I've got the pearl here somewhere…" he said, fumbling around with one hand in his vest's pocket. With that hand out of the way, the kage noticed with a start that instead of a cigarette, the man was holding a small ball of fire in his other hand. The man absently pulled the ball to his lips as he searched and sucked a thin tongue of flame into his mouth. He held it for a moment and breathed out a cloud of smoke, pulling a small pearl out of his pocket.

"Normally, Kizutsu's the only one of us who could tackle two villages in the same day, but since my subordinate has already wore you down, this shouldn't be too hard." He took one last drag of his fireball before shaking his hand, putting out the fires. "So… how shall I pay you back for injuring him so?"

The Raikage realized for the first time that he might just be out-matched.

***

"That's definitely a summoned creature." Kotetsu said, shielding his eyes against the setting sun. "A bird of prey, probably a hawk or a falcon."

"And I don't recall anyone in our village having a pact with either of those." Izumo put in. He turned and nodded at the third of their group. "Go and report this."

The ninja saluted and leapt off. Kotetsu watched him as he left and turned back to scanning the trees. He couldn't see the bird anymore, but his main concern was for the gates he and Izumo were guarding. It would take their companion about ten minutes to return from the barracks with backup and until then it was just the two of them. He glanced to the side at Izumo, the grim look on his face showing that he understood the situation too.

"Maybe it does have to do with the pearl." Izumo suggested, referring to their orders to guard against an unnamed invading force. No specifics had been handed down from those in charge, but Konoha couldn't take even a small force in its current shape.

He was about to answer when movement on the road caught his attention. Two people were walking out of the trees and approaching the gates at a good pace. The first wore black pants and a red, short sleeved shirt that hung loose over his lithe frame. The shirt had a hood that he wore pulled up over his bushy, blond hair. He wore an open fingered glove on each hand, each equipped with three long blades extending from the backs.

The woman was no less striking. She wore a shift that was cut low and hugged her figure. She had black leggings on her feet and several ribbons scrawled with script wrapped around her forearms and thighs. Her dark hair was almost as long as she was tall, and it blew about wildly in the breeze. Her piercing dark eyes were fixed on them as they closed the distance and she was cracking her knuckles.

"That's far enough!" Kotetsu shouted, stealing his hand onto the handle of the giant kunai he kept strapped to his back. "Konoha isn't open to visitors at the moment. You can just turn around and go back the way you came."

"Did you hear that, Lupe?" The man in red asked, tilting his head in a joking manner at the woman. "They won't let us in. And I was so excited to see the place. Tour the sights, grab a bowel of some special ramen, bingo their kage, perhaps scrounge around their storehouse for any pearls they might have."

He held up his bladed glove and looked at Kotetsu through the blades. "Good thing we weren't looking for permission."

As soon as he had finished his threat, Lupe was on the move. She leapt forward, charging across the distance in the span of a few seconds. Izumo was the first to react, quickly forming hand signs and holding in a deep breath. A slick sludge flowed out of his mouth and coated the road before them. But Lupe had already turned to the side and charged headfirst into the wall. She dived as if into a pool and vanished into the stone without so much as a ripple.

Kotetsu gawked at her apparent disappearance, but a warning from Izumo snapped his attention forward. The man had also charged and was leaping over the sludge on the road. In a single motion, Kotetsu pulled his giant kunai out of its sheath and sent it spinning at the man as he reached the apex of his leap.

Kotetsu fully expected the missile to be parried and was pleasantly surprised when it instead sank into the ninja's chest. His elation was short-lived, as the man was immediately engulfed in an all too familiar could of smoke. _Substitution jutsu,_ he thought, resting his hand on his other kunai and scanning the area for the place his enemy had teleported to.

His surprise was complete when the smoke cleared and, instead of the familiar log floating where the ninja had been, Izumo was revealed. Kotetsu watched in mounting confusion as his friend looked down in horror at the giant blade embedded in his chest before crashing into the sticky swamp of his own creation.

Thoughts whirled through Kotetsu's head. _That couldn't have been Izumo! Was it really a disguise jutsu? Or an illusion? No, that was definitely substitution. Can he choose what he substitutes with? Wait, Izumo was standing right next to me!_

He was turning before that last thought was fully complete, but by then Tikei was already too close to dodge. A sweep of his claws left deep tracks in Kotetsu's side. He slumped and scrambled backwards, not understanding why he hadn't been killed in that strike. He put his back to the wall and readied his kunai before him.

Suddenly, the wall around him exploded outward as two arms broke out on either side of his head. He turned enough to see the woman, her gleaming skin the same material as the stone, emerge from the wall above him. Her arms closed about his head before he could react further, crushing his head to the wall and stealing him from consciousness.

Lupe pulled herself from the broken wall and brushed off her stone arms. "Thanks for leaving me one while I prepared." She said, nodding.

Tikei flicked his wrist to get most of the blood off his claws. "More where they came from." he answered, and the two of them charged into the city.

***

If Shikamaru hadn't been staring wistfully at the clouds in the dying light, he would have missed the group leaping over the rooftops above him. He froze his wave and considered what he saw. _Nine ninja, that's two platoons plus one, who was leading. They were moving towards the north entrance…_

Behind him, Ino and Choji turned back from walking away and looked at each other. "What is it?" Ino asked, reading volumes from his suddenly tense posture.

"Not sure," Shikamaru muttered, almost to himself, "Might be nothing, but we should find out. Come on."

He leapt onto the roof of the restaurant they had been eating at, his teammates right on his heels. It took them no time at all to catch up with the force and Shikamaru drew level with the leader.

"What's going on?" he asked, noting the serious expressions around him.

"Trouble at the north gate." The man replied. "I was on guard with Kotstsu and Izumo when we spotted a large bird that was probably summoned. They sent me to get back-up, but on the way back our chakra sensor said there was fighting at the gate. We're expecting the worst."

Shikamaru nodded and was about to ask about the team's capabilities when Choji shouted and pointed forward. Two figures had come into view on the rooftops ahead, running towards them. They seemed to notice Shikamaru's group at the same time, as the figure in red made a motion with his hand and broke off to the right. The other figure continued on, closing the distance between them quickly. He disregarded the thought that they was friendly as soon as the approaching woman's path took her in line with a chimney, which she just smashed straight through as if it wasn't there.

Shikamaru landed on a roof edge and folded his hands one over the other. "Go on after the other guy. I'll contain this one." The captain paused, but didn't object. He quickly singled out two ninja to remain here and took off with the rest.

"Should we stay with you?" Choji asked, wavering between the two groups.

"Go on, they might need your help more." Shikamaru said, concentrating on his chakra. Choji and Ino leapt after the departing group without further comment, but Shikamaru didn't have the luxury to watch them leave. The woman was almost upon him and he took in every aspect of her as she drew near. Most surprising was the fact that she seemed to be covered in a layer of beige stone.

And then she was upon them, leaping high above and diving down at them. The ninja to Shikamaru's left let loose a handful of shuriken, but they bounced ineffectually off her stony skin. Shikamaru meanwhile pulled upon the shadow cast by the building, peeling it off the ground and positioning it between him and the falling girl. But she grabbed the edge of the shadow just as it came across, altering her fall by pushing off it. She crashed into the roof a few feet behind them and smashed through, splintering the entire edge of the building off.

Shikamaru stood out from his crouch and was about to jump from the falling rubble when it jerked forward, slamming him to his knees. He had time to think that the woman must have slammed into the other side of it before he was slammed against the opposite building. He avoided the worst of it, but his ankle got twisted and he fell to the ground, bouncing sharply against the jagged rubble.

He quickly surveyed the scene. They had crashed down in a courtyard in the back of someone's house. One of his ninja was half buried beneath the stone and it didn't look like he was breathing. He must have been caught directly between the falling roof and the building when she had smashed them against each other. The other ninja had managed to jump clear but was coughing on the dust, unable to rise just yet. Shikamaru slid his leg beneath a couple of stones and lay back, trying to look like he was trapped. He hid his hands behind his back as he made the necessary symbols.

With a crash, the woman landed in the middle of the rubble. She stood and immediately started over to him. Up close, Shikamaru saw that the stone layer was complete, including her eyes and teeth. He also saw a ninja headband wrapped around her arm. The symbol on in looked vaguely familiar, but he didn't have time to think on it right now.

The woman walked right up to him and stepped on the stone his leg was trapped under. "So, this is the point where I interrogate you. Who is the kage of this village and where can I find him?" Her voice was surprisingly light and melodious, coming as it was from a rocky mouth.

"As if I'm going to tell you." Shikamaru quipped, trying to buy a few more seconds of time to gather. "Just my luck too; I always seem to be fighting against girls."

The woman smirked. "Tell me about it, I always seem to be fighting guys. Well, if you won't tell me, I certainly can't let these style points go to waste." She pulled back her arm and drove it towards his head.

Which was when Shikamaru struck. The long shadows cast by the setting sun had nearly the entire courtyard engulfed and with a flick of his chakra he put them to work. Black arms materialized out of the ground and wrapped around her legs, holding them in place. Several spears of darkness jutted out and stabbed into her back, hands, back of her head, and shoulders. Soon she was covered head to toe in restraining layers of shadows. Shikamaru pulled out his leg and stood up, knowing he didn't have to fear her attacks anymore. He favored his injured leg as he leaned in close.

"Now, maybe you will answer my questions." he said, maintaining minimal control of the shadows as he focused on his prisoner. "Like for starters, who sent you to attack Konoha?"

"Well, you'll have to ask someone else." The woman snarled. She suddenly lurched forward strong enough to nearly pull the shadows restraining her out of the ground. Shikamaru was so startled by the sudden movement that he instinctively ordered the shadows to pull her back from him. The woman set her feet and stood ramrod straight against it, but allowed the tendrils in her neck to pull her head back sharply. Before Shikamaru could realize what was happening, the woman's head broke off from her neck with a loud crack! Her body immediately stopped straining against the bonds and fell down to the ground.

Shikamaru dropped to his knees, shocked by the suddenness of it. Almost numbly, he reached over and turned the body around to inspect the wound. The inside of the neck was solid stone and even as he watched it started to crumble away.

***

Back at the north gate of Konoha, the wall around the gate shuddered. With a cry, Lupe fell out of the wall and landed on her head.

"That bastard…" she growled as she got to her feet and brushed her arms off. "I won't be able to make another avatar out of stone until dayroll! Next time I see him, I'll bring the works. Note pages, shinys, oh yeah, he's going down."

She paused and looked up at the sound of running feet fast approaching. "Perhaps I'd better find someplace to lay low for a bit though. Barely have enough stamina to finish the quest without starting on any missions."

So saying she sank into the ground and vanished. A few feet to the side, an avatar made of earth rose up and slinked off into the shadows between two buildings as the first party of guards showed up at the scene of battle.

***

The large man looked over his steepled fingers at the three glowing forms before him. "This is much more resistance than I anticipated." His gaze rested firmly on the figure on the right, to the relief of the other two.

Redfire swallowed under that gaze and was glad he was just being projected into the room. For some reason, Azman had gotten much more intimidating since they had crossed over. "There are simply more active people here than we normally deal with." he started.

His explanation was cut off as Azman suddenly fell into a coughing fit that shook his huge frame. The three projections tensed, knowing they couldn't do anything as they were, but the fit soon passed.

"I don't see what the problem is." Kizutsu put in. She had the central position. "We all succeeded in our missions. And Red even got two. We're nearly done!"

"It's the fact that Red had to get two that worries me." Azman said, settling back into his chair. "Katar and Pfil shouldn't have needed help in a simple invasion. Both are nearly capped this season…"

"Perhaps it has nothing to do with their power, or that of our enemies." Daga said. The others turned to him and Azman motioned him to continue. "Well, surely you've all noticed it by now. Something's different here. I know I'm at least acting differently." In a soft tone that the others almost didn't catch, he continued, "…I was actually monologueing!"

"Perhaps…" Azman said, hardly sounding convinced. "Either way, we should probably check in on the other team. Red?"

"Completely out of stamina." Redfire answered. "I was just on my way back to patrol and call it a day."

"I've still got a bit left." Kizutsu said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a golden chain with several fancy symbols on it. She twirled it around her finger before slipping it over her head. "And I might as well get some use out of this regalia."

"I'm tapped out as well." Daga put in before he could be asked. "I don't nearly have as much daily chakra as you guys, and I had to do a lot of improvising in my fight. I might be able to at least support you a little, though, if you need it."

"Sure, if you can keep up." Kizutsu smirked. "Aren't you all the way over in the Water country right now?"

Daga met her grin with one of his own. "We both know that doesn't matter too much to me."

"Enough." Azman said softly, and to their credit they quieted immediately and faced forward. "Need I remind you we are on a time limit? Just get the pearl and get back here. Dismissed." He waved his hand and dismissed the genjutsu.

His hands stole to his side as he stared at where his lieutenants had been standing. _Yes, almost time now…_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"I've got him!" Choji shouted, diving forward to catch the falling form before he crashed into the hard tiles of the rooftop. He caught the man three feet before impact and settled him slowly against a raised wall. The man groaned, a stream of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. The ninja had several shuriken embedded deeply in his chest and stomach. His own shuriken.

Choji turned back to the battle with a snarl. The invader was fending off two ninja with those strange claws of his, while a third was using the distraction to sneak up from behind. With a yell, the ninja leapt and swung a cruel looking cleaver at the stranger's head.

Tikei tilted into the blow and the cleaver sank halfway through his neck. Instantly, both ninja were shrouded in the white smoke that Choji was quickly growing to hate. The smoke cleared after a second, revealing Tikei holding the cleaver buried in his assailant's neck. Tikei gave the corpse a kick, bowling over the two ninja he had been fighting. He leapt to the left and all but slammed into Ino, who had snuck up in his blind spot and jammed a kunai into his back. He grinned up at her as he bent backwards over the blade and vanished into his cloud, replaced by a length of wood. For a second, Choji thought he had performed a normal substitution, but then he saw the large telephone pole next to the building toppling sharply towards Ino.

Choji shouted out a warning and she spun, her eyes going wide. She leapt to the side barely before the heavy pole crashed into the rooftop. Choji ran to the edge of the roof and looked down. The man was standing on a foot tall stump that used to be the telephone pole's base and grinned up at him. He gave a jaunty salute and leapt off the stump, knocking aside the people on the street as he led them off on yet another chase.

Ino came level with Choji as they started after the man, determined not to let him out off their sight. "How does he keep doing that?" Choji growled.

"I don't know." Ino answered, shaking her head as up ahead the man took a hard left between two buildings. "I just want to know where he's going. Clearly he's not interested in fighting us if he can avoid it, so he must have some other goal than murder."

Choji grunted as they swung around the corner and saw him scaling the wall. "You follow him and try to lead him towards the shopping district. I'll give him a surprise when you get there." Ino nodded and leapt up the wall after the guy.

Choji tunned from the chase and ran down the street. As he passed people, he shouted for them to clear the streets. By the time he got to the shopping plaza most of the streets were empty, though most of the vendors were huddling at their stands. One barked a question at his, wanting to know what was going on, but an explosion on the building above his stand cut him off. They all looked up at a cloud of smoke drifting off the building. The sounds of fighting carried down to the street and as they watched another platoon of ninja arrived to join the battle.

His hands flew through their familiar pattern, Choji barely paying them any attention as he stared intently at the battle. There was a cry and a man he almost recognized fell from the roof, trailing red. Choji winced, but didn't make a move to intercept. _There,_ he thought, catching a flash of red cloth as Tikei jumped off the roof, nearly above Choji

"Full body _baika no jutsu_!" Choji shouted, releasing his stored chakra. His muscles bulged and grew, his veins burning with his chakra as it was pumped to every inch of his body. His skin stretched to accommodate the rapid expansion of his flesh, rippling in an almost uncomfortable sensation that he never really seemed to get used to. His vision unfocused for a second as his face grew and his eyes were pulled further apart than usual for a split second. His chakra leeched out from his pores and into his clothes, so that they would expand at the same rate as he would. Within the spam of a few seconds, Choji stood taller than most of the buildings around him. His stomach, which had been emptied to fuel his jutsu, growled angrily at him.

Choji, in turn, growled down at the tiny red form that was heading right for his chest, unable to alter his course. Being hungry always put him in a foul mood.

Choji raised his hand and swung it faster than an observer would have thought possible for something that size. It slammed into the stranger with a crunch and Choji grinned triumphantly, thinking he had beaten the ninja's technique. But a glance at his palm showed the remains of a crate falling off his palm, the pieces still trailing white smoke. Shouts rose up from the shopkeepers at his feet and Choji crouched down, ready to crush the man if he was harming the citizens. But when he saw what was going on he just couched on his heels and watched.

The substitution jutsu had definitely moved Tikei away from danger, but it hadn't changed the _momentum_ he had absorbed from the strike. Tikei had appeared by the side of one of the stalls and immediately continued flying sideways across the street. He slammed into a wall and was engulfed in smoke, trading places with a billboard above the wall. He then flew into a chimney and switched places with a plant hanging on a windowsill, crashing into the windowpane before switching with a nearby flag. This time he had managed to angle his substitution so that he flew straight up into the air, but whether it was the result of the rapid jumps or simply taking a little bit of damage from each of those collisions, it was obvious that he was barely holding on to consciousness. He reached the top of his ark and fell back to the roof in a boneless thump. This time there was no accompanying cloud of smoke.

Choji led out a sigh and released the jutsu. "Got him." he smiled, and then bounded to the roof to help with the capture.

***

"You ready for your first memory jump?" Yamanaka Inoichi asked his daughter. They were standing in the middle of a large, mostly clear room with a protective ring of symbols written along the walls. A pair of guards lounged against the far wall, talking with the medical nin who were standing ready if they were needed. In the center of the room lay the intruder, unconscious and shackled to a low table.

Ino nodded and turned to study the prisoner. "What do I have to do?" she asked.

"Just place your hand here and send your chakra into him, just like I showed you. I'll guide you the rest of the way." Inoichi placed his hand over the prisoner's head and closed his eyes.

Ino could feel the chakra her father released as he cast his jutsu. She took a deep breath and placed her hand next to his. Her first hesitant tendrils of chakra felt like they were floating aimlessly, but then they pulled taunt and she felt herself falling forward…

Ino blinked and tried to make sense of the sudden change of perspective. She was standing next to her father and the prisoner, who was crouched before them and shading his eyes against the sun. They were all outside and on the edge of a tall building, in the middle of a city that she'd never seen before. The buildings looked… random, almost, some of them of a design style sharply different from those around them. The sun was hanging oddly in the sky and the area around the village walls was covered in odd looking trees. Every now and then Ino thought she caught a glimpse of movement in the trees, but she wasn't sure. The trees ended not too far away, giving way to a large, rolling desert of sandy dunes.

"Steady there." Her father said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "We're in his memories, about five or six hours ago."

Ino blinked and gestured at their strange surroundings. "Only five or six? Then where is this?"

Inoichi shrugged and turned to study the city as well. "I'm not sure. Certainly not anywhere I've been to. I doubt there could be a village of this size within half a day's journey of Konoha, but…"

"I see her!" the red cloaked man shouted, standing from his crouch and leaping off the roof. Ino peered at where he had been looking and saw a figure approaching the village along a winding path. But before she could make out anything about the person, she was jerked through the air after the man. She panicked for a second before remembering that they were in this man's memory, so of course they would have to go where ever he did.

They followed the ninja as he leap down from rooftop to rooftop till he reached the street level. He started off down towards the entrance, but a man stepped out of an alleyway and put out a hand to stop him. This man wore a green vest that flowed down the back of his legs and there were swirls of tattoos around his arms and chest.

"Kizutsu's returned, Red!" their man shouted, trying to duck under the outstretched arm.

"I know." Redfire answered, handing a wiffle bat to him. "But we have to get ready for her, Tikei. You remember the plan Daga's been working on for the last week?"

Tikei eyed the bat curiously and nodded.

"Good." Red continued, grinning. "I think his plan needs a little… help. Sneak around the back of the storehouse and wait for her to show up. Then while she's distracted, hit her upside the head with the bat. Got it?"

Tikei nodded eagerly and set off again, angling his path slightly away from his original. Soon they were slipping through the back of a giant building. The walls on the inside were filled with paraphernalia of items that would take too long to describe. Ino instead focused on the man seated on a bench in the center of the space. He was covered in a grey cloak that hid most of his features, and a small plate of cookies was on a stool next to him.

Suddenly a giant voice rent the air. "YOSH! AT LONG LAST, I'M FINALLY HOME!" The man on the bench straitened up and slipped the book he was reading into an inner pouch. They didn't have to wait long before a woman waltzed into the storehouse, carrying a bulging sack of items over her shoulder. She was dressed in brown and tan leathers and a bandana tied the back of her hair down, save for a ponytail that was similar to Ino's. She was humming to herself as she started emptying her bag.

The cloaked man cleared his throat. "Kizutsu, welcome back! How's Shikageru doing?"

Kizutsu jumped and spun, but released her dagger when she saw who had spoken. "Didn't see you there, Daga. Shika-dono seemed… _tired_, and I'm not sure I should have left Godaiyou the way I did, but it's not my place to worry about him. In any case, training under a kaiju really wears me out; it's good to be back."

"I got you some welcome home cookies." Daga said, picking up the plate and holding it out for her. "Don't worry, I swiped them from Red. You won't have to brave my cooking."

"Thanks." The woman strolled over and plucked a cookie from the top. Her loose sleeve brushed his hand as she quickly whipped her hand back, turning the cookie over in her hands to examine it. She raised her eyebrows at Daga before starting to eat it.

"Don't worry about it. I know it's tradition to haze villagers when they return, but the cookies are perfectly safe." He put down the plate as Kizutsu turned back to her bag. As soon as she turned around, he slipped his hand under the plate and gripped a piece of rope that had been hidden underneath. Ino followed the rope as it snaked under a thin layer of dirt on the floor to a loop that Kizutsu was about to step into. Meanwhile, Tikei was slowly creeping forward into Kizutsu's blind spot.

Several things happened at once. Daga pulled the rope at the same time that Tikei leapt, which was the same time Kizutsu spun and mist poured from her mouth. Ino couldn't see anything for a minute, though she could hear the sounds of fighting. She was startled when the mist cleared and the entire room was upside down.

"Over there." Her father said, pointing over her shoulder. Tikei was hanging upside down by his ankle in Daga's trap. Somehow he had managed to keep a hold on the wiffle bat, which he was swinging uselessly through the air. Daga Yemar was on his feet, having knocked over his seat in the excitement, and Kizutsu was standing much where she was before. She looked very pleased with herself.

Daga whistled softly. "Well, looks like the old kaiju taught you some new tricks." Kizutsu beamed at him and made a show of eating the last of the cookies.

"But we shouldn't turn back on tradition just because she's gotten better." Redfire walked in through the open doors and regarded the scene before him, grinning from ear to ear. "Yes, we can still make this work. Let's call it a reverse piñata. Kizutsu stands right there while we blindfold her and Tikei swings until she bleeds candy. It'll be fun!"

Kizutsu burst out in laughter. "And you think that I'm just going to agree to that?" she laughed. Then she frowned and seemed to be straining, her clothes pressing tight against her body. Despite her obvious effort, she couldn't move.

She turned her head and looked over her shoulder. "When?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"When you took the cookie." Daga replied, pulling a length of cloth out of his sleeve. "You'll need this."

Before he could take another step towards her, the lights in the storehouse suddenly went out. In the darkness, a shape slowly grew out of the floor and glared menacingly down at them.

"We don't have time for this." the shadow growled. "Do you not remember why I sent for her return? Bring her up to me at once!" The shadow immediately sank back down into the floor and the lights returned.

"Guess we'd better postpone this." Daga sighed, releasing his jutsu's hold on Kizutsu. At the same time Tikei finally managed to slip a kunai under the rope and cut himself free, falling to the floor onto his head. He slipped behind the trio as they left the store house, with Ino and her father trailing behind.

"I don't understand." Ino said, tuning out their conversation. "Why are we still watching these memories? They don't seem all that important."

"Really?" Inoichi arched his eyebrow at her and turned to regard the ninja. "While they aren't reading their village secrets to us, we are gleaming useful information. These people here must be important ninja in this village, for Tikei to follow them so. And have you noticed the buildings yet?"

Ino looked around. Up close the mismatched designs didn't look intentional, more like they had been thrown together with whatever materials had been nearby. Several windows in the immediate area were boarded off, and a couple walls looked like they were sagging. Everywhere were the small signs of hasty repair work.

"This place looks like it's falling apart." Ino mused. "And I don't see many people about."

"Exactly." Inoichi beamed at his daughter and returned to lecture mode. "I'd surmise that this village is either on the decline or broke, probably the latter. Can you tell anything else?"

Ino frowned at Tikei's back. "They're acting… oddly. They don't really seem like bad guys at all. And this guy seems like a different person. A little goofy, perhaps, but certainly not the guy who killed six of ours before going down."

Inoichi frowned. "I didn't see him in action, but if you say he's acting off then he must be. Let's listen in some more; maybe we'll find out why that is." They drifted closer to the ongoing conversation.

"So do you have it?" Redfire was asking, staring at the diminished bag still slung over Kizutsu's shoulder.

"Of course." Kizutsu grinned, reaching into her bag and extracting a round metal tin. Red shouted in joy and snatched the tin from her hands, lifting the lid to reveal half a chocolate cake. He immediately started eating it with his hands.

"You really shouldn't give the guy so many sweets." Daga said. "I always feel a little nervous when our head of black ops has a sugar high. But… if you remembered his cake… did you…"

Kizutsu smiled and pulled a small wooden thermos out of her pocket. Daga grinned and uncorked the bottle, taking a deep whiff.

"Fresh mineral water." Kizutsu said in amusement. "Though I still don't understand what you do with it."

"Crafting…" Daga said crypticly, sealing the thermos and slipping it under his cloak. "I need some way to stay on par with the two of you."

"Speaking of the black ops." Redfire mumbled around a mouthful of cake. "Do you want your position back? Can't say I'm sad to see my job go, but you did create it before I even came here."

"I should probably see what Azman wants. He…" They turned a corner and the party stopped cold. "What is this?" she asked coldly.

Ino slipped ahead to get a look at what they were looking at. A ninja was lying with his back pressed against the wall across the street, his arms and legs sprawled loosed on the ground. At first Ino thought he was sleeping, but a closer look showed that his eyes were open and staring at nothing. His skin was a pallid shade and his clothes were in disarray. Every ten seconds or so the ninja pulled in a shaky breath and let it out slowly.

Daga clucked his teeth. "Looks like Chorst has fallen to the Idle. The disease has been ravaging the village since you left. Just last week Nessaj and Avihey caught it and I…"

Kizutsu drew her knife in a blur of motion and slammed it into Chorst's neck. The comatose man barely twitched as what life was left in him bleed out. Kizutsu flicked her blade to get the last of the drops off and slipped it back into her sheath. The entire thing took no more than three seconds.

"Idle ninja hinder the village." She said, in a voice that sounded like she said it often.

"Tell me about it." Red muttered, putting the rest of his delicious cake away. Apparently he had lost his appetite. "We even lost a black ops member two days ago. Shame really, Akira Blaze could do this thing with his kunai…"

***

They travelled mostly in silence for the rest of the trek. Ino tried to keep her eyes open, but everything was just a little too strange for her. Every building, every person when they came across one, seemed both familiar and completely different. They came across another ninja who had contracted the Idle, Tikei had named him Ishinatso, and Kizutsu had taken care of him the same way as Chorst. They were discussing whether they should take the bodies to some place they simply called Science or just throw them over the wall like usual, when they arrived at a large, domed building. A rusted sign over the door proclaimed that it was the Kage's office and the conversation stopped when they entered.

There were several people already in the room, but Ino's eyes were drawn to the center of the room. Seated in a tall chair was the largest man she had ever seen. Her was heavily muscled and had bright yellow hair that exploded from his head in all directions. He wore blood red trousers and was bare to the waist. Strange metal gauntlets covered both of his arms, probably meeting behind his back.

He was slumped in his chair and painfully opened his eyes as they entered. "Ah, there you are. I wanted to get your expert opinion on this before I decided what to do."

Kizutsu sucked in a startled breath a rushed forward. "Reokun, what's happened to him?" she cried. Ino followed to get a closer look.

There was a huge, bloody wound in the large man's side. It was pulsing oddly, almost glowing a dull red from the inside. Another man stood next to the wound, his hands covered in the familiar blue glow of medical jutsu as he poured chakra into the injury. This man was dressed in an open grey coat covered in vials, bottles, and jars. He had red gloves with black trim over his hands and belts slung across his chest, holding even more bags. His hair was short and black in the back, while the front was dirty silver and fell down in odd strands to his chest.

"The wound isn't healing." Reokun said, pulling back his hands and flexing the kinks out of his fingers. "Though I say again that we should have an actual medical nin in this village. I only dabble at it, there's not much I can do for something like this."

"It happened the last time we were attacked by the zombjas." Daga said, coming up behind Kizutsu, who was scrutinizing the wound. "We were almost done, had taken down every Z on the field, and Azman went to face the Zombulator alone. But when the Zombulator struck him, he was somehow knocked _back_ into the Gate."

Kizutsu turned away from the wound. "I've never heard of that happening before. What was in the Gate."

Azman gritted his teeth. "Aaron Ji, himself."

Kizutsu jumped and looked at the wound with fear in her eyes. "THE Aaron Ji? How did you survive?" Ino and her father exchanged looks and leaned in closer to hear more.

"Were're not sure he has." Redfire said, taking up the narrative. "When he finally stumbled out of the Gate, he was in bad shape. Hallucinating, kept raving about getting hit by a bus or something, but we finally got the full story out of him before he passed out. He's been in and out for weeks."

"I call you back because you are the most knowledgeable ninja we have." Azman started, but suddenly started coughing. Everyone in the room tensed, and Reokun rushed forward and started pumping healing chakra again. After a while, the coughing subsided and everyone started to breathe again.

"I need to know," Azman continued in a strained voice, "Have you ever come across anything like this before? Has your kaiju mentor ever mentioned any advanced form of healing that might work?"

Kizutsu was shaking her head before he had finished asking. "Against something caused by the Aaron Ji? I don't think anything short of the Eleven D. Billionth's intervention could help now."

"I was afraid of that." Azman said, shaking his head. "Then without a cure, we must go forward with the plan."

"Azman tried to call for the Eleven D." Redfire said in answer to Kizutsu's confused look. "But he got no answer. So he told us about this rumor he heard about the place the Eleventh came from and what he left there…"

"Tikei and Rublis, step forward!" Azman shouted, holding up his hands. Ino noticed that the armor covered his hands as well and a smooth, clear crystal was set into each palm. Tikei stepped forward and was met with another ninja, who was eyeing the gauntlets nervously.

"An expert on earth moving and the master of the substitution jutsu." Daga muttered. "Azman, once again your use of that item impresses me to no end."

"When we arrive, you all will split into five groups." Azman was saying. "I think…"

White light poured from the crystal set into Azman's right gauntlet, quickly enshrouding Tikei and whiting out the world around him. Sound vanished along with everything else.

"What happened?" Ino shouted, unable to hear or see anything but endless white.

"I don't know." Her father answered. "I suppose Tikei wasn't conscious for this part. But at least we got to see the Kage of this village before he went under."

"But what…" Ino started, but was interrupted when the world returned in a rush. They were in the same room, although it was obvious that time had passed. Azman's breathing had steadied and he looked like he had slipped into a nap. The others were in a huddle on the other side of the room.

"…will provide us with his falcons so that we can get to all the targets before nightfall." Daga was saying. "Ah, Tikei, you're awake. You'll be teaming with Lupe."

"What… what happened to Rublis?" Tikei asked, rising to his feet and holding his head. "I feel… odd. Like everything is serious for some reason…"

"Didn't survive the jutsu." Kizutsu said cooly over her shoulder. "We threw him into the pile with the Idlers." She motioned for Tikei to join they're discussion.

"Here." Daga said, handing a small button to Tikei. "Put this on your collar. I've prepared one for each of you in case…"

"As much as I enjoy the trip down memory lane, I think that's enough of this."

Ino frowned at the voice and turned to ask her father, but froze and her blood ran cold. A second Daga was standing in the room, but this one had the same faint blue aura around him that was around them. He had his hand clamped over Inoichi's neck and was holding him off the floor. Inoichi flailed uselessly as his windpipe was crushed.

"Father!" Ino shouted, but before she could make a move the memory around her started to fray. Ino screamed as her jutsu collapsed and she was falling… falling… falling…


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Morino Ibiki looked down at the carnage at the front gates and shook his head. An attack so soon after what the village had just been though seemed cruel, but he had seen enough of the world not to be surprised. He knelt and dipped his fingers into the thick sludge that coated the road. _No doubt about it, this is Izumo's swamp jutsu. Looks like they at least put up a fight before going down._

"Alright men," he said to the troop standing behind him, standing swiftly and wiping his hand off on his pants leg. "I want three men on clean up, while the rest of you form a perimeter around the road fifty meters out. I don't want anything else coming along until we've had time to clear up this mess."

"Sir, look up there!" One of his men shouted, and Ibiki squinted up at the lip of the road. A thick mist was starting to pour out from the trees where the path disappeared into it.

"Weapons out!" he ordered, falling into a ready stance with his hands half into their customary signs. The clink of drawn blades and kunai behind him told him that his troop had anticipated his order.

The mist poured lazily out from the trees and seemed to collect in on itself. After a moment a woman walked out of the mist and regarded the force arrayed before her. Her hand slipped to the knife she had belted behind her hip and she grinned in anticipation.

* * *

"Father!" Ino shouted, coming back to her senses with a start. She was lying on a gurney next to the slab Tikei lay upon and she had a slight headache from lying with her head at an odd angle. But she pushed her discomfort aside and leapt from the gurney, rushing to where the others in the room were crowding.

Her father lay on a gurney of his own in their midst and he was bleeding profusely from the neck. The two medical nin were working frantically on him, one pouring blue medical jutsu into his neck while the other seemed to be struggling with something in his neck. The pair of guards were attempting to keep Inoichi from thrashing around while the doctors worked.

"Almost… got it…" the nin working on his neck huffed, and with a cry of success he pulled something small out of the gaping wound. Ino had a brief glimpse of a small, black button before it seemed to leap from the doctor's fingers and embedded itself in his own neck. The doctor fell gurgling to the floor as the two guards let go of Inoichi and charged to his side.

The other medical nin suddenly shouted and poured more effort into her current healing. "No, don't fade on me… no! No!"

_What else can go wrong?_ Ino thought to herself, just before the wall behind her exploded inward.

* * *

Daga sipped from his china cup and hummed to himself. Frowning, he picked up a small wooden thermos and tipped a drop of the water therein into his cup. He took another sip of the tea and smiled. _Perfect._

"Looks like that button's all used up." He muttered to himself, setting the teacup down on the carpet he was lounging upon. He rummaged in one of his inner pockets and withdrew a fifty ryu coin.

"Kizutsu." He said, holding the coin up to his mouth and activating the dormant jutsu enchanting it. "We've another problem. Tikei's been captured. Big building, centered towards the north in the village. I took down two of his captors for you."

Finished with his message, he let go of the coin and watched it fade away into nothingness with a sigh. _If nothing else, it's certainly cheaper talking to people back in the village, with that jutsu Azman has always running._

"I didn't know they had someone who could read memories in Konoha." He mused aloud, tapping a finger idly on the carpet. "I'd better speed things along. Kiz might need me after all."

He noted a tree that was taller than those around him approaching fast as he picked up his tea again. The carpet curved aside and brushed the branches tips as it soared by, shooting just a bit faster in the fading light.

* * *

Shizune looked up as another crash sounded through the rooms thin walls. "Sounds like the fighting's getting closer. I wonder if I should move her…"

She looked down upon Tsunade's sleeping form and bit her lip. Moving her though a battle might prove more dangerous than leaving her where she was. Not for the first time Shizune wished that she'd just wake up and take command again. _The village really needs you now,_ she thought.

"Oh man, I've seen this before." A voice said, breaking Shizune out of her reverie. "How long has she been down?"

Shizune leapt to her feet and swept her gaze about the room, but she was alone. Confused, she readied herself at the room's only door as a cold hand clamped down on her leg. The room inverted as her feet were swept out from under her and she was thrown across the room. Shizune rolled over onto her feet and saw a woman who seemed to be covered in dirt crawl out of a hole in the floor. The stranger rose to her feet and flicked her long hair over her shoulder.

"Just stay where you are." She said, taking a step towards Tsunade's still form. "The Aaron Ji been a bit harsh on me today, and I'd rather not test my luck much further."

Shizune didn't know what the woman was talking about, but her intent was as clear as day. Leaping forward to the defense of her sensei, she pulled back the sleeve on her left arm to reveal a row of needle launchers strapped to her arm. She pulled the release string as she closed and a half-dozen needles shot across the room and dug into the woman's face and neck. Expecting the poison coating each of the needles to have the woman down shortly, Shizune pulled a kunai out of her back pocket and prepared for a finishing blow.

But Lupe just ignored the stings and rushed the surprised woman, punching her hard in her unprotected stomach. Shizune doubled over from the blow and a second chop to the back of her neck dropped her. Lupe reached up and pulled one of the needles out of her cheek and examined it.

"Poison needles? Wow, are you sparing with the wrong person." She flicked the needle down at the sputtering woman and stalked back to Tsunade's bedside. "Now just lay there while I finish up. Can't believe how backwards this is… bingoing the kage _after_ invading…"

Shizune gasped and tried to get an arm under her, but the blow had left her weak. Cursing her below average amount of chakra, she tried the only thing she could think of to stall for time. "She's not the Kage!"

Lupe paused and glanced back at her. "Are you sure? I saw her name at the top of your village's roster. In bold and everything."

"We had to find a new one quickly." Shizune explained, mind working furiously. "It was decided that the village needed a new leader as soon as possible so that we didn't appear weak to the other villages."

"Huh." Lupe muttered, chewing her lip. "That's cold. I mean, back home we usually wait until they idle out for a week before kicking them out. Two weeks if they're a jonin or sannin."

She stalked over and grabbed Shizune by the collar, lifting her up to look her eye to eye. "So who's the kage now, and where can I find them?"

"D-Danzo." Shizune said quickly, deciding the truth would serve better than a lie. "But no one knows where he is right now. He hasn't yet returned from the kage's summit."

Lupe frowned and started to ask another question, but shouts from the hall interrupted her. As she turned to look at the doorway, Shizune seized the opportunity and called up what little chakra she could gather. She opened her mouth wide and a stream of purplish gas poured out directly into Lupe's face. Surprised, Lupe dropped her and she scrambled away to get some distance between them.

Lupe just stood in the cloud of poison and laughed. "Really, you might have better luck if I had lungs right now."

The door burst open and several guards rushed into the room but Lupe was already gone, slipping feet first into the soft earth of the floor. One of the men ran back out of the room shouting for assistance and the others helped Shizune to her feet.

"I'm fine." She said, brushing their worried looks away. "I'm just glad that she didn't harm…" The rest of her sentence died away and she saw Tsunade roll over and blearily open one eye.

"…Shizune…" Tsunade said weakly. "…What's happening…"

* * *

Kizutsu hummed to herself as the fifty ryu coin disappeared slowly from her palm, its jutsu spent. A quick mental scan revealed Tikei's relative location to her. _Dang, so only the three of us were able to able to successfully invade. These villages are much tougher than those back home._

She walked calmly through the carnage that littered the village gate. Stopping at the body of who she had assumed was their leader, she knelt and wiped the blood from her blade on his long black coat. As she rose back to her feet, a sudden surge from the earth to her left caused her to drop back into her ready position. But she relaxed as Lupe clawed her way out of the ground and gave an appreciative nod in her direction.

"Man, are you a sight for sore eyes." She said, what remained of the dirt dripping from her as if brushed away. "Nothing has been going well here. Tikei has been…"

"I already know about Tikei." Kizutsu interrupted, walking past her and giving her a pat on the shoulder. "Looks like you're just about out of stamina. Call your falcon in and head back to Demons. I'll finish up here."

Lupe was shaking her head before Kiz finished. "I already sent my falcon into the village, but Tikei's should be around here still. I'll wait here for you to bring him back before leaving, but that's not all I need to tell you."

Kizutsu turned back to her and raised her eyebrow, waiting with one hand on her knife.

"Their Kage has gone idle." Lupe explained, rummaging around in her pocket. "They've switched control over to some guy named Danzo, who's not currently _in_ the village. But more importantly…"

She pulled a small orb from her pocket and, grinning wolfishly, held it out. "I found the pearl on my way back. For some reason these old guys had it, not one of their top ninjas. It was easy taking it from them."

Kizutsu clapped her on the shoulder and push the hand offering the pearl back. "You'd better hold onto it until I finish up. Don't worry, this shouldn't take too long." With that she winked and leapt off, quickly disappearing amongst the rooftops.

* * *

Daga leaned over the edge of his carpet and frowned. There, up ahead and to the left, the flashing light appeared again. It blinked through the village's signature once more before going silent. _Now who's all the way out here, I wonder?_

He tapped the carpet and it swung down, descending through the trees to deposit him on the edge of a flowing stream. Just ahead a bridge crossed over the river from bank to bank. Or rather, it had until recently. A huge battle appeared to have been waged here, leaving most of the bridge in rubble.

And walking out from the wreckage, waving him down and slipping a small mirror into a pocket, was a familiar figure. Cid was tall, not a giant but taller than most, and very lean. He wore a long, dull red trench coat with a large collar and creased grey pants over plain white shoes. His eyes were hidden in the shadow cast by his wide-brimmed red hat, pulled low. A bushel of his tangled hair fell down the back of his neck and he had a pair of dull amber sunglasses perched on his nose. Despite his appearance, Cid was the best tracker their village had to offer.

"This had better be important, Cid." Daga said as he hopped off his flying carpet, checking with one hand to make sure his hood remained up. "You were supposed to be guarding the village from attacks in our absence."

"I'm not that far away from Demons…" Cid said defensively, a low hiss underlining his words. "I thought a bit of scouting might be in order if we're staying a while…"

Daga sighed. The ninja before him redefined the word 'sneaky', and he wasn't really surprised that he'd gone off on his own once again. "Well, what was so important you called me down?"

"Over here…" Cid said, waving him to follow as he started up towards the bridge. Daga heaved a sigh and tagged along after him.

* * *

The giant falcon darted its head forward again, snapping the air just above Ino's head. She dived to the side as the giant bird waded further into the room, setting loose more rubble from the ceiling.

A roll landed her underneath a low table, where Ino tried to catch her breath and survey the growing chaos. Across the way lay one of the guards, bleeding from a wicked gash down his front that the bird had inflicted when it had burst through the wall. The medical nin who had been taken by the strange button had bleed out as the fight raged on around him , and the remaining guard was trying to draw the summon back out of the room.

But all of Ino attention was drawn to the form of her father, which the remaining medical nin had pulled beneath a similar table across the room. She was continuing to pour healing energies into him, but he had gone very still a while ago. Ino gritted her teeth in frustration. If she could only get over there, she might use her own healing jutsu to help…

The falcon turned its head away from her for a moment and Ino dashed from her shelter, skittering along the floor and trying to keep behind upended tables and rubble. The falcon was on her in a flash, however, leaping into her path and scattering her meager shelter away. The guard diving in to her defense, twin kunai leading, but the bird clipped him into a wall with its wing.

The falcon reared back to stab down at her unprotected from… and an enormous hand slammed into it and bore it into the far wall. Ino spun around and smiled warmly at Choji, who was standing in the door and using his partial expansion jutsu. Several other ninja squeezed through the door around him and sent a stream of kunai into the summon. The falcon screamed on pain and vanished in a cloud of mist.

Ino scrambled to her feet and made for her father. Choji stepped into her path and tried to ask her something, but she brushed past him and knelt down at her father's side. The medical nin had stopped using her technique, ans as she arrived looked up slowly into Ino's pleading eyes. She started to say something before a voice from the ruined was cut through the room like a knife.

"Why did you have to do that?" the stranger asked. She was tall with brown hair tied back with a cloth, and she was dressed mostly in tan leathers. She was flipping a long knife in her hand. "Now how am I going to drag my friend all the way back to Demons?"

* * *

The party walked mostly in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. So much had happened recently and no one really wanted to talk. Well, most of them anyway.

"Cheer up, Sakura!" Naruto said, blissfully ignoring Kakashi's motions for him to keep quiet and leave Sakura alone for now. "Maybe there'll be some good news about Tsunade waiting for us. Just over this rise and we're home!"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Kizutsu cocked her arm back and threw her blade across the room violently. Ino flinched as the weapon whistled threw the air over her and spun to watch it. It slammed into the broad mirror along the wall with such force that it sank halfway to the hilt into the glass without shattering it completely. On the other side of the room the ninja who was sneaking up behind the invader cried out and clutched at his chest. Blood oozed out from between his fingers as he collapsed to the floor. Ino eased up from under the table and looked back to the mirror in time to see the ninja's reflection pass out from where the knife had impaled the glass.

"No one else make a move, now, OK?" Kizutsu ordered, slowly walking into the room. A fine misted curled around her feet as she approached the medical table. "I'm sure we've all had enough fighting for one day. So I'll just be taking my friend off your hands and we'll just call it a day."

Choji looked warily around the room, then shook his head and hardened his resolve. "This guy murdered dozens of men. You aren't taking him anywhere."

Kizutsu chuckled and turned to give him her full attention. "Listen, kid, you don't know who you're picking a fight with. Compared to this guy, I'm…"

Before she could finish, Choji closed the distance between them and lashed out with his palm. Flames curled about his fingers as he struck forward, slamming the woman in the face with the force of a sledgehammer. Kizutsu's neck was pushed back inhumanly far and suddenly came off, trailing wisps of mist from the base. The rest of the mist clone quickly dissolved and Choji spun around to track her.

"If you insist." Kizutsu sighed, sitting cross-legged on top of the table Ino was hiding beneath. Ino and the medical nin grabbed her father and dashed away as the intruder grasped the hilt of her weapon and pulled it from the mirror.

Choji's arm shot forward again and extended, growing larger and larger as it shot across the room. Kizutsu leaped from the table and somersaulted over the arm as it smashed the table, mirror, and most of the wall into pulp. Her knife flicked out as she sailed over and slashed a small wound, no more than five inches long, along his arm. Choji pulled back to take another swing but stopped as blinding pain rippled up from his arm. The gash suddenly widened lightning fast, ripping along his enlargened limb until it reached all the way from the back of his wrist to his elbow. Red ichors welled up from the wound and he fell back, losing his focus on his jutsu.

"Choji!" Ino cried, dashing over to his side as his arm returned to normal. She quickly appraised his arm and noticed that the wound had shrunk with his arm, back to only being five inches. It was still wickedly deep, so she immediately set into it with her medical jutsu.

After concentrating on her work for a second, she looked around and saw that the other guards were sidling into position to rush the woman. "Stop!" she shouted, "Enough have died already!"

The guards looked at her crossly but slowly backed down, never once letting go of their weapons. Kizutsu, meanwhile, lifted Tikei's still unconscious form onto her shoulder and nodded in her direction.

"Wise decision." She commended and took a step towards the hole in the wall. But suddenly a gold coin appeared in a flash of light in her free hand and started relaying a message.

"Kizutsu! Get back to the gate, there's more coming and I don't think I'll be able to hold them all off!"

"Great…" Kizutsu muttered, rolling her shoulder to get her burden into a better position and giving the room one last onceover. "What else is going to go wrong?" She sidestepped and was gone.

* * *

"Well, this is worrying." Daga muttered, looking down at the battlefield spread out before him. The fighting had been fierce and a quick glance over had revealed that there must have been more than two sides involved. All sides had apparently vanished quickly after the fight, leaving only one fatality lying in the center of a huge blast radius.

"You can tell without even needing to track him down." Cid said, motioning with his hand at the body. "He was a Kage."

"Of a smaller village, perhaps…" Daga muttered carefully. "River country, or Bird…"

Cid shook his head before Daga could finish. "Land of Fire. I've already checked."

"Blast." Daga walked down the slope and bent to touch the body. It was shriveled and brittle, the skin crumbling under his touch as he probed it. It was as if all the blood in his body had been sucked away, by some unfamiliar jutsu.

"I assumed only 'this hand of mine' bingo'd yourself." Cid put in, leaning over his shoulder. "Unless someone else did it to him, but it doesn't look like…"

"Doesn't matter how it happened." Daga sighed, rising to his feet. "What's important is that he's got no blood for us to use. Do you have any juicy apples on you?"

"I can go get some…"

"Hmm… no, we don't have the time to wait. You head back to the village and inform Azman of this. Out spies said that Konoha's Kage was a woman named Tsunade, not this person. I've got a thing or two I need to check up upon first."

"You got it, chief." Cid waved a half-hearted salute and leaped off the bridge onto the water bank. He stepped slowly into the river and kept walking, stepping deeper and deeper into the tide. If Daga had been watching he would have seen that Cid's body was vanishing into his reflection, until with a plop his head went under and he was gone completely. But Daga's attention was fixed upon the still form lying before him.

"…He's not bingo'd. It's… almost as if he's gone idle, but this battle can't be weeks old…" He shook his head as his carpet floated over. A hop put him back onto it and it rose up above the trees, speeding with all haste towards the horizon.

* * *

Lupe stumbled backwards, holding her wooden arms up defensively before Lee's ferocious blows. Her retreating foot crunched through a discarded super potion bottle and then her back was against the wall. Lee jabbed at her head but only managed to crunch through a tangle of whicker hair as she dropped down and slashed out at his legs. He easily jumped over her strike, but her true intention had been to dive beneath him and make a break to the side. Her path was immediately blocked by several of Naruto's shadow clones boxing her in.

"Don't let her get too far off." Kakashi said almost lazily, rolling his eye in Yamato's direction. "Have you located the one she's in yet?"

"Just about… yes." Yamato unclasped his hands and pointed at a tall oak just at the edge of the tree line. "She's in the center of that one, about halfway up the trunk."

"I'll get her out." Kakashi promised, cupping his hand and pouring chakra into it. Lightning coursed over his palm as he leapt through the air directly at the tree, closing the distance in a flash. The chidori clove deep into the trunk, splitting the tree in half with the force of the blow. As the top tumbled down Kakashi continued through the air, dragging Lupe with him on the end of his palm. The two of them came to a crashing halt on the ground ten feet away, the experienced jonin pulling his hand back from the calculatedly nonlethal wound.

Back at the wall, the wooden avatar went stiff and started to break apart at the edges. The rest of the group paid it no mind as Kakashi returned with the severely injured woman. Naruto didn't wait for the rest of them, grabbing the kunoichi by the sides of her collar and hauling her forward.

"Who are you?" he asked angrily, staring her down. "Are you the one who did all that at the village gate?"

Lupe laughed shallowly, a thin trickle of blood leaking down the corner of her mouth. "Nah, she's already gone into the village. Bet she's already got what we came for and is on her way back now."

"What did you come here for?" Kakashi asked, pulling Naruto back and letting the injured woman collapse to the ground. Lupe just smiled up at him and said nothing.

"Hey, look!" Yamato exclaimed, pointing to the armband surrounding her arm. "Doesn't that look like…?"

Naruto leaned in close and squinted at the symbol. With a start he recognized the intimately familiar spiral pattern as the same seal that was imprinted over his chest. His hand stole reflexively to the tattoo, and Sakura caught the motion before he could hide it. She turned a worried gaze to her teacher, who had also seen the movement.

"Let's bring her into the village where we can interrogate her properly." Yamato suggested. "Kakashi, you grab her other arm…"

"Actually, if you could just leave her there, that'd be great," a voice cut in. The group spun around to see Kizutsu standing at the top of the village's wall. She hoped off and landed lightly before the group, slipping the still form of Tikei from her shoulder to the ground. "I've already got one comrade to carry back without having to go in after another… do I know you from somewhere?"

"Then you're the one behind this!" Naruto shouted, flipping his hands together into his familiar symbols. Several clouds of smoke burst into existence around him, releasing eight shadows clones in a semi-circle around the woman. With a gesture he sent the clones forth and they leapt as one directly at their target.

"I swear you look familiar…" Kizutsu muttered and hopped backwards, unsheathing her knife in one hand and putting two fingers of her other into her mouth. She let out a piercing whistle as the clones closed in, filing out to either side of her. One clone to her right faked forward, letting another leap at her back while she turned to the first. Something in the other clones posture gave their plan away, as Kizutsu spun at the last second and stabbed her knife deep into her attacker's shoulder.

Seeing an opening, the other clones rushed forward with their fists raised to strike. But all of a sudden they skidded to a halt and clapped a hand over their shoulders. An identical wound had burst forth on each of them in the exact place that the first clone had been stabbed. One by one they burst into smoke as the jutsu dissipated, leaving the original Naruto on his knees, clutching his severely bleeding shoulder.

Kizutsu moved faster than any of them thought possible, crouching at Naruto's side before anyone else in the group had time to move and peering close at his face. "…Didn't you used to have an eye patch?"

Kiba's claws raked the air where her head had been a split second ago as she ducked down and hooked her arm around Lupe's armpit. She leapt back from the group and directly into a small forest of grasping wood. She spun in a quick circle and sheared the tops off them with ease, seemingly meeting no resistance at all. The wood fell away as Yamato cursed and pulled his arm up from the ground, staring in horror as he realized that the top digit of each of his fingers had been cut off.

"Stop using ninjutsu upon her!" Kakashi ordered, dashing around to cut off her retreat with Lee. Kizutsu smiled widely and mist poured from her mouth, obscuring the area directly around her in an instant. Desperate to stop her before she could try another trick, Lee leapt directly into the mist with a roundhouse kick. He met no resistance and fell straight through to the other side of the cloud.

"She's not there…!" he started to say, but froze along with everyone else as the mist started to clear. Kizutsu was still there, standing calmly next to a small cloud of mist that wasn't dissipating along with the rest. Suspended within the cloud was the image of Lee as he had passed through it, frozen and reflected off the floating water droplets. Kizutsu had her knife out at the image's throat, the forms of Lupe and Tikei lying next to her feet.

"Let me explain a little about my blade." She said, keeping her eye on each of them in turn as they spread out around her. "There is no way to fool it. Images, disguises, reflections, avatars; my knife can cut through any proxy to the heart of its target. Nothing can stop it. So how about we all just back down before I cut this poor boy's throat out. I'm getting a little bored with all the fighting today and this here's my ride."

A giant falcon cleared the treetops and swooped down upon the group, the wind from its passage dissipating the mist image. Kizutsu bent, grabbed both her companions, and threw them up into the air. The falcon grabbed them in its claws and looped back around. The woman was about to jump onto it when a hand burst from the ground and grabbed her by the ankle. Sai wrenched himself from underground and drew his weapon quickly from it's sheathe. Kizutsu flipped her knife over in her hand and tossed it over her shoulder back over the village wall…

…where Kizutsu caught it casually in her hand. She gave the group a jaunty salute as the mist clone dissolved in Sai's grasp and leapt off the wall onto the falcon's back. The bird immediately gained altitude and sped off into the skyline.

"Who was she?" Sakura asked, applying medical jutsu to Naruto's wounded shoulder. "What is happening?"

Kakashi marked the direction the falcon had disappeared in and turned to look down at her. "Nothing good. Let's get in the village and see what's been going on."

* * *

Kouri flicked her fingers lightly over the talisman as she ran; constantly checking it's subtle tugs against her direction. She almost caught her foot on the edge of a fallen log as she leapt over it and barely managed to regain her footing. She cursed savagely and focused her anger on her running, ducking her head and adding another burst of chakra-aided speed.

_That cloaked freak,_ she thought as she swerved amongst the trees, _he'll pay for what he did to the Mizukage. As soon as I can get my hands around his neck…_

In truth, Kouri knew that she was lucky just knowing where to find him at all. If Akiro hadn't been on the wall just as the assassin flew over it on his carpet and tagged him with his tracking knife, they would have had no idea where he had gone off to. But if the talisman she held was still working, than he had finally stopped traveling. As soon as she arrived, she'd summon her ninja bears right in the middle of his village. Her bears were waiting for her signal in Kiri, ready to carry with them teams of ninja for the invasion.

_In just a few hours, I will get my revenge!_ She thought with a savage grin. She amped yet another burst of chakra into her legs, speeding fasted then a car could travel through the winding forest. Closer to her target.

* * *

Jikairo pulled one last time on his smoke and tossed the end into a small pond. "You sure we're still going in the right direction… Kurotsuchi, was it?"

The Earth Country nin looked up from where she squatted with her hand flat on the ground and nodded. "He definitely passed over this way. We should reach this Demon's village sometime in the morning if we keep pressing forward."

Jikairo nodded and brushed off his hands. Soon they were leaping through the treetops again, making for some point in the distance as steadily as they could. Not for the first time, he reflected on how lucky he was to have stumbled across her. While he was the best tracker in Lightning Country, he wasn't quite as familiar with the lands outside its borders as he should have been. Falling in with another scout on the same mission as his had been a godsend.

"If you don't mind my asking," Kurotsuchi said, cutting into his revere, "How is your village going to launch its assault when we arrive?"

Jikairo grinned and patted the large scroll strapped to his back. "I can use summoning jutsu to summon most of the jonin in Kumo. They're all waiting for me to call them in once I'm close enough. And you?"

Kurotsuchi turned away and answered in a playful voice. "I probably shouldn't mention, _but…_ they've actually been following me this whole time. A while back the Second Tsuchikage had a massive tunnel system dug throughout nearly everywhere. All the able ninja in Iwa are traveling in chakra powered trolleys underground right now, following this little orb I'm carrying with me."

Stunned by this news, Jikairo skipped to a stop and stared at her. "Under all the countries… but, that means you can… this is such a break of the…"

"Or maybe I'm just messing with ya!" Kurotsuchi laughed, spinning around and beckoning him to keep up. "I guess you'll find out once we get there!"

"…lousy, secretive Earth Country…" Jikairo muttered under his breath, but pushed off after her anyway.

* * *

Temari flattened herself against the back of the wolf summon and winced as the pain in her chest flared in response. She shrugged the bandages into a less uncomfortable position and glanced about her. The rest of the pack of summons continued on as tirelessly as they had started, the nin who had summoned the lot riding the one at the front. They were almost at the northern border of the Fire Country, and Temari wondered if their pursuit would take them right into the northern ocean.

_I'd go that far and beyond to get her back for what she did,_ she vowed to herself again. She also silently hoped the small force she had with her would be enough, considering how well they had faired against just one woman from this village. She had hoped that they'd have a chance to stop by Konoha and ask for assistance, but the trail had curved too far to the west and they couldn't afford to lose it.

"We _have_ to be able to do this." Temari muttered, clutching the fur tighter as she was carried across the land.

* * *

Naruto slumped against the wall of the infirmary and tried to process all the information that he had been told. The only good news was that Tsunade had finally broken out of her coma. But hearing about the attacks on the village… and to not even been _here_ to help!

Across from him, Sakura was trying to calm down Ino, who was crying into her hands. They were all here, teams seven, eight, ten, and eleven, crowded in the middle of the ward and anxiously awaiting any news they could. Naruto was conscious of most of them taking covert glances his way and knew that they were all waiting to see what he would do. This feeling of being depended upon, to be _looked at for guidance…_ it felt both good and overwhelming at the same time. He clasped his hands together and said what he knew everyone in the room must be thinking right now.

"We have to go after them."

Kiba growled and punched the wall. "Yeah? How? Not that I don't want to hunt them down, but not even I can track someone who flew away!"

"Just calm down." Shikamaru scolded him. "We have more than enough clues to go by. You mentioned she went off to the north, so if we start our search there…"

"We can do better that that." Kakashi said, stepping out from the intensive care ward. He held up his hands to ward off the others as they crowded around him. "Ino, your father is going to pull through just fine."

Ino sighed and collapsed gratefully back into her seat. Sakura looked up over her shoulder and cocked her head quizzically. "What do you mean, we can do better?"

"Inoichi was able to collect the location of Demon's village right before he was forcibly ejected from Tikei's mind." Kakashi explained. "While he can't go himself, he described the area enough so that I'll be able to direct us straight to it. And Tsunade has already decided that a swift attack is better than w3aiting for them to return here."

Naruto clapped his hand over his fist dramatically and leapt to his feet. "Then let's get going immediately. I know just how we can get there as soon as possible."

* * *

Redfire looked closer at the liquid bubbling in the beaker and set it back down with a sigh. "It's not that I don't believe you, Daga. It's just that what you're describing doesn't make much sense."

Daga leaned forward from where he was perched on the edge of the table and stared forward intently. "I'm telling you just what I saw. The man was idled, but it couldn't have been more than half a day old."

"Perhaps he was just hard-bingo'd…" Red said dismissively, turning back to his experiments.

"I can tell the difference between idle and bingo." Daga said sharply. "The rules we're used to just don't work the same here as they do back home. I think that here, when you go down, you idle_ instantly!"_

Red froze and turned slowly back to face him. "That's… a sobering thought. I wonder if…"

"It's not that different." Kizutsu declared, walking through the door into Red's lab without knocking. She juggled her two pearls in one hand and she leaned on a bench across from the two of them.

"You must have seen it yourself." Daga pressed. "Everything here is just… I don't know, strange. Like, _serious,_ or something. We've all been acting different."

"I won't argue that we're playing for higher stakes than we have ever before." Kizutsu said calmly, locking eyes with him and arresting his full attention with her sheer force of will. "But the rules still apply. Outside of Konoha I met two teams, and each team had allies I recognized with them. Billy, Pinky, and K-Dog in the first; and Rover and Bruce Jr. in the second. Whatever the rules of this place are, at the core they still must follow those of ours."

"I don't know…" Daga said, unconvinced.

Kizutsu sighed. "Either way, I'm sure we can expect to be invaded a couple times tomorrow. Off all of us, you're the one who needs to prepare the most. Shouldn't you get started before dayroll wipes your remaining chakra?"

Daga grunted and sulked out of the lab. Kizu watched him until the door swung shut behind him and sighed. "Not even a parting joke. Maybe he's right… I just don't feel the same anymore…"

Red came around his table and put his hand on her shoulder. "That doesn't make you wrong, either. They will attack us, and if we really do idle as soon as we're bingo'd, then it's even more important we don't slip up. I'm gonna go launch the inquisition; see if we've got any spies already. Coming?"

"Sure." Kizutsu fingered her knife as they walked out of the lab. "But first I think I'll check up on some of our more silent villagers. I get the feeling we're going to need everybody."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"…One…no, two people from the northwest." Hinataru muttered, squinting harder into his handheld telescope. The wind blew his mop of grey hair wildly about his head to match his windblown, weather-beaten grey cloak flapping about his body. He shifted his perch and turned in the opposite direction. "And another scout to the east… not to mention the number of summons coming up from the south. You were right; we're going to have one impressive fight on our hands."

Redfire breathed in the fresh air and looked out over the view. From here, on top the tallest building in the center of the village, he could see the entire valley played out before him. "We all know the plan. Pfil, you gather the sweepers and send them out to cut off the scouts. I'll intercept the group coming up from the front gate."

The third member of the group nodded and tipped his black baseball cap in salute, leaping off the rooftop without a word. Red turned back before he took his leave. "Remember, we think all five of them will be attacking today. Stay here and send a message if you spot any others."

"I know my part in this, boss." Hinataru smiled, setting himself into a more comfortable resting spot against a satellite dish. "Go on and do your thing."

Red took a deep breath and held it in thoughtfully as he hopped from roof to roof back to the streets. Truth be told, he wasn't looking forward to the looming battle. Sure, it had felt great to cut loose yesterday, but something about the victory had felt sour afterwards. There just hadn't been the sense of accomplishment he usually got after successfully completing a quest. He mused darkly on these thoughts as he turned a corner and almost ran right into a pile of idlers.

"Wha…?" he shouted, snapping out of his reverie and instantly recognizing the slumped forms before him as Lilium, Eidorian, and Demon Soul. "Oh, this is _not_ what we need right now!"

He amped up his aura for a second and blasted the lot of them with a small heat wave. It was enough to cause their fragile bodies to crumble into dust and start blowing away on the breeze he had so enjoyed a moment ago. He watched their forms vanish with more than a little apprehension.

_Those three were the team assigned to north. Why did they all have to go idle now, and at the same time?_ A small piece of Daga's warning, that idlers fall prey to the sickness quickly, popped into his musings. _This is bad. Idlers don't fall apart like that until months after contracting it. If all of this is true, then how many others have gone down? If those with even a small amount of the idle were to succumb all at once… half the village might be out by now!_

Suddenly nervous, Red picked up the pace and was soon striding out the village's gates. The full force of the morning sun struck him full on the face and momentarily dispelled his doubts. Peering around, he made note of the small pile of discarded potion bottles lying be the side of the steps as Daga stepped out from the tree line.

"Early morning?" Red called, knowing full well that Daga had gone out as soon as dayroll had rolled around to prepare.

Daga grunted tiredly and wiped sweat from his face with the sleeve of his cloak. "Just like we always do it on every z-map; you guys go out and engage the enemy head on, and I'll make sure no one gets into the village. We've done it so often, what can go wrong?"

Red managed a smile as the two of them crossed paths. "I heard about the test. The four pearls didn't work at all."

"We knew we'd need all five when we started." Daga countered. "Aaron Ji willing, we'll see the fifth in our possession by the end of today. Aaron Ji… I just noticed the strange inflection we're giving his name. I wonder why…"

"Yeah…" Red muttered, letting it go as another of Daga's conspiracies. It was true that back home they had simply referred to him as The RNG, but he didn't think it was too important right now.

"Let's make sure we all get out of this in one piece." Red called over his shoulder as he walked into the line of trees.

"That's the plan." Daga whispered to himself. He walked up the steps and sat down cross legged in front of the entrance. He started to focus, charging up charka to replace his severely diminished supply. Silently, he began to mentally count the number of kunai and shuriken he had stashed in the storehouse.

* * *

"Is that it up ahead?" Jikairo whispered, pushing aside several branches to get a better look at the shadowy shape looming in the distance. It was certainly a small village, at least compared to Kumo, but he couldn't make out any other details from this distance. Silently as he could, he pulled out the scroll from its pouch on his back and started unfurling it.

"What are you doing?" Kurotsuchi hissed, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

Jikairo shrugged her hand off and spread the paper across the ground. "I'm calling my forces in. We're close enough."

"We should scout first…" she started, but cut off as a man walked up from a rise just ahead of them and walked calmly directly towards their position. He wore black leathers under a ruined grey coat, all of which was buried beneath layers of bags and bottles. His black and white hair blew wildly in the wind. He paused about ten feet from the bush they were crouching behind and sighed audibly.

"I already know you're over there." Reokun called, working the kinks out of his neck casually. "If you'll just turn yourselves in now, we won't have to go through all the trouble of taking you out. What do you say?"

"I say there's only one of you, and an army of us!" Jikairo grunted, biting the tip of his thumb. A tiny drop of blood welled up.

"Wait… did he say 'we'…?" Kurotsuchi whispered, then widened her eyes and shoved Jikairo roughly to the side. She threw herself in the other direction as a sharp blade on the end of a chain stabbed through the air between them and impaled the scroll lying on the ground. Green, foul-smelling fire curled around the edge of the blade and immediately crisped the summoning scroll to cinders.

"Looks like they don't want to come quietly!" Katar laughed, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet on a large branch above them. He jerked his arm back and wound his chain back around his arm.

Reokun sighed and popped the lid to one of his vials. He poured a couple drops of gel onto his palm, capped and stowed away the vial again, and began to rub his palms together. A low crackle quickly filled the air and sparks shot out from between his hands as he rubbed faster and faster. Finally, he pulled his hands apart, each palm covered with a light coating of lightning-chakra-charged gel. "All right, flush them out."

Katar whooped and leaped down from his tree, whipping his chain in a huge arc around him. It sheared through branched and trunks as the two invading nin dashed to either side to escape it. Kurotsuchi held her arms up protectively over her eyes as she crashed out of the overgrowth and was shocked to see Reokun had already covered the ground between them. His left palm thrust out as she twisted to avoid it, but he deftly maneuvered to graze the side of her chest.

"Clear." Reokun said calmly. A surge of chakra blasted up through his arm, through the gel on his palm, and straight into Kurotsuchi's side. Kurotsuchi was thrown bodily through the air, her body arching painfully around the area his palm had touched. Bones snapped and blood vessels were crushed as the wave of lightning surged through her. She spun end over end in the air to crash against a tree, dazed. A thin trickle of blood leaked out from the corner of her mouth.

"Kuro!" Jikairo shouted, back-flipping out of reach from the wildly swinging chain and forming a few rapid hand signals. A small hurricane of leaves swirled up from the forest floor and shaded him from view for a couple of seconds. When they cleared, they revealed eight of him standing in a tight clump. The clones immediately spread out, save for one unlucky guy which was swiftly impaled on Katar's weapon.

Katar laughed and arched his blade back from the dissolving leaf clone. He spun on his feet and swung the chain out to its full length, the acid-coated metal meeting no resistance as it sliced through any tree unfortunate to be too close. All the Jikairo's easily dodged the wide attack, and one of them launched a roundhouse kick at his head. Katar blocked the blow with his free hand and grabbed on, pulling him over and around and flinging him at another clone who was trying to sneak past to the fallen kunoichi. They collided and rolled into the brush where they dissolved into smoke and leaves.

Meanwhile, two had closed in on either side of Reokun. He dodged their initial strikes with limited movements, keeping his charged right hand tucked behind his back while slapping fists aside with his left. He palmed another of his vials and snapped his arm up so that a punch blocked from his right smashed into it. The fragile glass shattered and released a cloud of gritty black smoke that the clone immediately started choking on. Reokun used the distraction to twist around and slap a tag onto the other's chest. The clone tried to strike back, but Reokun spun lightly out of the way and it collided with the other one. The exploding tag ignited as they fell down, blasting them apart.

"So the real guy's over here!" Katar crowed, crowding the remaining three into the same area. "Place your bets!" He faked to the side and threw the chain out backhand, where it swung around them several times before it linked with the blade. He jerked the tied up trio forward to unbalance them and swung them around right into Reokun's path.

"…Must you always be so loud. Clear." Reokun's palm blasted the nearest one right in the stomach, launching the entire group backwards into the air. Three identical screams of pain ripped through the air as the clones collapsed in a swirl of smoke. The empty chain clanked to the ground, green smoke warring with sparks created by the static discharge.

Katar grunted. "So where's the real one?"

"Kurotsuchi, are you alright?" Jikairo asked, pulling her around to the far side of the tree she had collapsed against. The only response he received was a painful cough and a slight fluttering of her eyes. He put his arm around her and shifted her onto his back, planning the best path for an undetected retreat.

But before he could start off the tree exploded above him in a shower of splinters. Jikairo was blown forward, spilling his charge from his grasp as he fell sprawling across the grass. Shards of wood, some nearly a foot long, stabbed into his back and the ground all around him. Slowly, he turned over to see Reokun standing over the jagged stump, his tingling palm still outstretched.

"So there you went." Reokun said, striding forward. "But it looks like this battle is over."

Kurotsuchi was only dimly aware of events occurring around her. There was something she knew she should be doing, but the dull ache in her stomach seemed to blot out all other thought. Somewhere behind and to the left she heard the sound of someone talking and then a piercing cry of pain. That cry was enough to finally break through the fog of agony. She struggled to remember what she needed to do. Something with the round thing she felt in her hand?

Slowly, painfully, Kurotsuchi opened her palm and rolled the glass orb onto the ground. She pressed it into the soft earth until it encountered a buried stone and cracked apart.

* * *

"Oh, what is this now?" Hinataru muttered to himself, leaning forward as if to get a better look through his spyglass. Another cloud of dust had shown up on the horizon to the south, closing almost as fast, if not faster, than the first. Another group of summoned beasts? He focused the lenses and confirmed it.

Reinforcements perhaps? He rocked back in his seat and considered it. _No, there's no reason for them to travel in separate groups that close to each other. So… different groups…_

Coming to a decision, he dipped into his pocket and pulled out a fifty ryo coin. "Azman. We've got more company incoming. Do I have your permission to call in some additional help?"

He didn't have to wait long, as the sky above him darkened and delivered the kage's reply directly to his position. "I've reset your permissions so you can proceed. You'll find the resources in a case behind you."

Hinataru spun lightly and walked over to a rusted metal locker he swore hadn't been there before. The door swung open without resistance and he deftly withdrew eight metal bars. He laid the precious metals, one of which still warm from the furnaces it had been forged in this very dayroll, side by side on the rooftop and bit his thumb. With swift motions he wrote the word "Monster" over their shiny surface and quickly stepped back when they began to glow.

Back home this would only be random, but Hinataru had a sneaking suspicion of what would appear this time. His anticipation was rewarded as the blinding light spilled forth and a gargantuan phoenix appeared in a burst of flame. Drazhar took wing and flew a slow circle around the village, but its eye was locked on the small figure standing on the roof it had been summoned upon. A mental connection flowed between person and firebird for several breaths and finally Drazhar turned in and came to roost next to the building.

Hinataru was beside himself with exhilaration. _They were right, it works! Somehow, I can partner with it like a regular summon over here!_ He didn't know how it was possible and at the moment he wouldn't have cared if anyone explained it to him. Quickly coming to the regrettable decision that he couldn't ride on Drazhar safely, he pressed his still bleeding finger to the roof and summoned another of the falcons he had provided everyone. He hopped onto its back and gestured dramatically at the distance.

"Let's head out, guys!" he crowed, and the two giant birds took to the skies. Hinataru had enough presence of mind to dip into his pocket for some more coins and the wind whipped his cloak into a frenzy. There were a few more messages he needed to send.

* * *

"Up ahead!" the lead scout called out and Temari craned her neck up to look. They must be getting close to the village, but she couldn't see anything from her perch until they topped a rise. There, just in the center of a valley, lay the place they had been searching for. And, more importantly, there was another group of summons between them and it.

Temari squinted into the rushing wind. "Hey, isn't that…?" Sudden gasps from the head of the pack interrupted her and she focused her attention back on the village. An enormous bird made out of fire had appeared over it and was circling it warily. A summon, most likely. She was about to send out an order to split up when the wolf beneath her suddenly shuddered violently. Before she could assess what was wrong, the wolf vanished in a cloud of smoke. She and the other two who had been riding with her tumbled forward and collapsed into a rolling pile.

Pain from her only partially healed wound blinded her for a few moments, but she was on her feet before any of the others. A quick glance revealed that the entire pack had been banished as well. "Shidan! What happened to your wolves?"

"I'm not sure…" he answered, limping to his feet and looking around bewilderedly. "I think they were sent back, but how…?"

"Only one kaiju per village at a time." A voice said, and the whole group spun around to track the source of it. Tikei crouched on the top branch of a nearby tree, idly sharpening his blades on each other and smirking down at them. "It was a gamble on our part, but it looks to have paid off. You'll all have to stay here for a while."

Shidan bit his thumb and clamped it to the ground. "Not likely! I can just bring them back… why isn't anything happening?"

"No summons anymore." Another voice said as the shadow along the side of the tree seemed to bulge. A shape peeled itself from the side of the tree and the shade slide off it, revealing a gaunt man wearing a red trench coat and hat. Cid wiped a smudge of ichor from his hat's brim as he looked up into the tree. "You win again, Tikei. But I'll be waiting for you to show up next time."

Cid turned back to the Sand nin and jerked his thumb at the village, where a building had just gone up in flames. "Demons has been on hard time recently, so a lot of our resources were in desperate need of repair. Those flames are the remains of our summoning circle the Drazhar just incinerated. That means no one can summon any more allies. We hope that's not too much of a problem for you."

"Not in the slightest!" Temari screamed, wrenching her fan from its sheath and whipping a huge gale of wind at the two of them. The members of her team leapt out of the blast's path as it bore down on the two enemies, both of whom made no attempt to dodge out of the way. Tikei was engulfed in smoke as the winds tore the branches around him to pieces, which quickly blew away to show he had substituted with a nearby boulder.

Cid took the blast full on and bent back like a reed in a storm. His classy shoes emitted a soft glow of chakra as they stayed perfectly in place, his legs bent at a ninety-degree angle just above the cuffs. His body rippled slightly under the stress of the wind before it started to fade away. As soon as the winds died down Cid rose fluidly back up, arching his back until he was bent in half with his chest up in the air. The glint of a knife poked out of each of his sleeves and he snapped back upright, blurring his arms as they whipped forward and launched the blades. With his arms still crossed over his face, Cid dashed recklessly after his knives, the glint of more blades shinning from between his cupped fingers.

Meanwhile, Tikei had appeared quite suddenly in the middle of a group of four in the back of the gathering. He immediately stabbed out to either side, sinking his blades in to the knuckle before either opponent had realized he'd appeared. The man standing directly behind him let out a yell and threw a punch, but Tikei was already gone in a flash of smoke. The ninja's fist broke upon the large stone that was suddenly where the enemy had been.

Temari cursed and braced herself to meet Cid's charge, easily deflecting his first two projectiles with her fan. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the giant firebird had left the village and was now bearing down upon them. It wound be there in a matter of moments.

_Damn,_ she thought,_ we're going to have to make our stand here. But if I did see who I thought I saw… I leave the task of invading in your hands._

* * *

"Dang it, boss frog!" Naruto fumed, stamping his feet in frustration. "Why'd you have to go and dump us off like that? Where did you go?"

"I don't think he did it on purpose…" Kakashi muttered, turning this way and that to get a clear view of the surrounding forest. Give Naruto his due; summoning Gamabunta and several other toads to carry them had been a brilliant idea. Though traveling on them for so long _had_ gotten a bit rough… But just as they had been nearing their target, something had caused all the toads to be sent back. Everyone had been sent sprawling to the ground and every instinct was telling him that they were about to find a fight.

"Stay sharp, everyone. Their disappearance is most likely an enemy's attack." Kakashi warned, and within moments the others had collected themselves and gathered around. "Luckily, we're nearly at the village. We'll split into two teams like we planned. Each group should have a byakugan, so Neji and Hinata will…"

An earsplitting screeching filled the air and drowned out all other sound. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears and looked around wildly for the source of the noise.

"Over there!" Kiba finally managed, noticing how Akamaru was growling into the trees with his hackles raised up. "Back towards the village. Something huge is coming!"

"Everyone scatter!" Yamato ordered and everyone dived for cover. Naruto found himself sharing a low bush with Shino and Kakashi. They didn't have to wait long as an enormous firebird almost immediately soared directly over the clearing created by Gamabunta's landing. The creature was so large that it took Naruto a second to realize that the small spot flying along the phoenix's beak was another summon, just big enough to carry a single person. With another earsplitting screech the creature was gone, rocketing past them and disappearing in the foliage.

"Why didn't they attack?" Shino muttered to himself just loud enough for them to hear. "It couldn't have missed us all."

"We must not be its target." Kakashi surmised, putting it together fast. "And if something further from the village is a priority for them, then they must already have some way to stop us."

"Kakashi!" Neji called, hopping down from his tree and striding quickly over. "Someone's approaching from the direction of the village. He'll be here in a matter of seconds!"

Kakashi took a steadying breath and considered. "It'll be one of the three generals that Ino witnessed. The Kage is too wounded to travel this far from the village and there was no indication of any others that could take on this many opponents."

"Leave him to me." Naruto grinned, cracking his knuckles in his eagerness to get started. "I can handle one guy, no matter who he is!"

"Naruto, we need to stick together…" Kakashi began.

"No." Naruto interrupted. "The important thing is getting into Demons as fast as we can. If this guy's as powerful as that woman was, then I've got the best chance of holding him back as you guys go in. Besides, all I need is one shot and I can take anyone down!"

Kakashi looked like he was about to argue more, but Shino raised his hand and pointed. "Too late to debate. He's already here."

The brush parted as Redfire stepped out into the clearing. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he surveyed the gathering before him. "Well, well, this is a lot more than I expected. Did your entire village tag along for the invasion? I've sure got my work cut out for me."

He thrust his hands out to either side and it didn't take gasps from both Hyuuga to see that he was gathering a huge amount of chakra. "Let's get started!" he shouted, the very air around him starting to boil.

The ground around him suddenly exploded upward as living wood burst out all around him. The wood wrapped itself around the ninja's arms and legs, pinning him in a tight prison as the beams melted together into a single structure. Surprise cause Red to lose track of his jutsu and the gathered energy's waivered.

Across the clearing from him, Yamato gestured at the others with the hand he wasn't pressing into the ground. "Go! We can handle him here!"

Naruto watched with satisfaction as they all split off and racing into the trees, even Kakashi leaving with just one last nod of trust. All but two of them, anyway.

"It's a pain…" Shikamaru said, scratching his hair and staring intently at the bound Demons nin. "But I can't just leave you to take this guy all on your own."

"We'll give you the opening you need!" Lee promised, striking a ready pose and preparing to charge.

Naruto smiled at them and turned back to their strangely calm foe. "All right, guys… let's make this fast. I want to beat the others to the village."

"Heh…" Red laughed, fire dancing in his eyes. "This will be over fast, all right…"

* * *

"I should be out there…" Agrael sighed, slouching a little further on his stool. He wore simple grey and black leathers along with a black headband that kept his spiked blond hair from falling over his eyes. An intricate, swirling tattoo wound its way around his neck and disappeared down his chest under his shirt.

"So you keep saying." Lupe laughed dismissively, swirling her ramen around with her chopsticks to soak up more flavor.

"I'm just as strong as any of them!" Agrael shouted defensively, nearly knocking his bowl over in his excitement.

"Not saying you're not!" Lupe answered slyly, holding up her hands before her. "But someone has to stay back and guard the village, and your skills work best on home ground anyway. The higher ups don't think Daga will be able to do it all on his own this time. The last line of defense is all up to us, so cheer up already!"

"Easy for you to say." the third member of their group said. Ichiro was lounging with his back to the counter, his mostly full ramen bowl perched casually on his knee. He was dressed in washed jeans and a brown jacket, worn open to show off the silver pendant hanging from a chain around his neck. A strand of sealing beads encircled each of his wrists, which clacked together as he adjusted his plain baseball cap over his long, silver hair.

"You at least got to go out on the last mission." he continued, staring up at the clouds. "The two of us have been stuck here 'waiting for orders' since we got here. If no one does get past those three, then we'll probably never see any of the action."

Lupe shrugged and scooped a swirl of noodles out of her bowl. "Come on guys, don't be such downers! I splurged on this teriyaki and I want to enjoy it. We'll get our turn soon."

A glint above them caused Ichiro to lean forward and stare up out of the shop's overhang. "Was that Pfil? Where is he going off to in such a hurry?"

"Looks like he's heading for the walls…" Agrael put in, shading his eyes in the morning light.

"There, you see?" Lupe said, turning back to her meal with gusto. "They're already calling in reinforcements."

"I don't know…" Ichiro murmured thoughtfully. "There's no telling what that guy does in these situations. He might just be going out on his own."

Abruptly, Agrael drained the remains of his bowl and stepped out from the shop. "I'm going for a walk."

"Don't wander too far." Lupe called after him, but he was too lost in his thoughts to hear as he walked away.

He knew the reason that he was being held back. Even now, he could feel the strength of the stones beneath his feet, wiping away any fatigue he might have been feeling. His ability to channel chakra directly from the earth did work best when he was familiar with the area, but secretly he knew that Azman just wanted to keep him close. Because in a pinch…

_That will NOT happen!_ He vowed to himself as he ducked into a side street and knocked aside some loose paneling he had carefully set down. The suit of armor he slowly revealed had at one time belonged to a Demons nin named Sir Royce. Sir Royce had once used this armor to perform truly impressive feats in the arena, but the enormous drain upon his chakra that the armor required had sapped his vitality. When the idle had come down on him, the armor had actually accelerated its spread. Since then, it had lain on the street where Royce's body had dissolved from out of it.

No one had been able to figure out how to work it since, and wouldn't have dared to if they had. The power requirements were too great. But as Agrael lifted the helmet from the heap, he felt the sacred Fire burning at the village's center rising up through his legs and out through his hands. He smiled as a small readout blinked to life in the right eyelid and several small whines indicated the long dead mechanisms hidden in the stylized helmet reactivated.

_We'll see how long they can keep me here._


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Are… are they going to be alright?" Hinata asked worriedly, peeking back over her shoulder as they rushed through the foliage.

"He's more than capable of handling a guy like that!" Might Guy shouted with brimming confidence. "Now let's pick up the pace! I am determined to get to the village first before Kakashi!"

Hinata flinched and turned her attention forward. "Yes sir…"

Guy looked over his group with a swift glance. Of his own team, only TenTen had followed him as they split off into the woods. The others, Kiba, Hinata, Shino, and Sai, weren't used to his usual loud behavior. He would have to try a different tack to reassure her. He caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up, flashing one of his dazzling smiles.

"I guarantee that they will be all right!" The light glinted brightly off his shining teeth.

Hinata smiled back uncomfortably. "O-of course…" she stammered, distracted by his forward attitude.

Kiba's eyes almost glazed over as he listened to the exchange. "He's too loud, even for me…" he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at them. A scent drifted into his senses just a fraction of a second before Akamaru perked up his nose and leaned intently forward in his charge.

Unfortunately, the most acute senses in the world don't mean much if you don't have the reflexes to react to them. Pfil was out of his dive and shoving the dog's head into the ground before Kiba had finished turning back forward. He used the dog's head as a vault, turning a full arc in the air and kicking Kiba in the side of the head. Kiba whipped through the air and crashed into a nearby tree as the others skidded to a halt to appraise this new foe.

Pfil didn't give them the time to plan.

"Gather around…" Guy shouted, but was cut off from saying more as Pfil's blade slashed at his throat faster than thought. Guy easily bent back out of the sword's path and stayed just ahead of the next several slashes, but they were just meant to drive him back. Almost before he had completed the last swipe, Pfil was leaping backwards. He drove his metal-clad fist blindly behind him and connected sharply with Shino's gut as he was trying to sneak up on him. Shino gasped and fell to his knees, while Pfil raised his sword to behead him.

In a flash TenTen was behind the Demons nin, arm pulled back and ready to stab a kunai into his back. Something in Shino's posture gave away their plan, however, as Pfil dropped his weapon and spun, catching TenTen's arm as she lashed out. He continued his spin, using her momentum to drive her forward and into the kneeling ninja. They stumbled over each other into a heap as he kicked his sword off the ground and into his grip.

Across the way, Sai had pulled out a scroll and swirled his ink-stained brush over it. But the simple snakes he had drawn remained pictures on the paper rather than lift up into life. Sai stared down at the paper in confusion, momentarily forgetting where he was. Pfil's sword sliced up through his scroll and cut a shallow gash into his cheek, his dodge barely enough to stop his throat from getting cut out. Pfil moved to follow and finish him, but Might Guy slammed into his side and knocked him clear across the path. Pfil flipped and landed neatly against a tree trunk, staring balefully at him.

Without taking his eyes off his opponent, Guy tilted his head in Hinata's direction. "I'm the only one who can match this guy! Get the others out of here; I'll catch up as soon as I can!"

Hinata started to argue, but Kiba coughed and struggled to get back on his feet. She nodded and finished helping him up, leading him swiftly through the woods. The others quickly followed after her as soon as they had recovered themselves. Pfil dashed as if to go after them, but Guy skidded into his path and he backed up warily.

"Why don't you throw the sword away, and face me like a man?" Guy challenged, dropping into a ready stance. "I sense there is much potential in you. Know that you now face the mysterious blue beast of Konoha!" He waited for the Demons nin to introduce himself.

Rather than answer, Pfil dashed forward and slashed down at his knees. Guy easily leapt above the obvious strike and aimed a kick to the head. Pfil caught the leg with his free hand and twisted, bringing up his sword at Guy's back. Guy managed to knock the side of the blade with his knee and chopped down on his sword hand, loosening his grip. A twist and he sent the sword flying away.

Guy landed on his toes and spun, putting all his momentum into his fist. Pfil met his challenge with his own punch and their fists connected with bone crunching force. Sudden insight flashed through Might Guy in that instant. _I know this feeling… _The blow drove them back and Guy appraised his opponent more warily.

"I was right." Guy said, pacing in a slow circle. "You are using the Gates! But only the second gate, Kyuumon. I shall show you how a master of the Eight Gates does battle!" He crossed his arms and pulled all his focus inward. _The fifth gate should be enough…_

"Tomon, limit gate, release!" He thrust his arms out to his sides and his aura exploded. Power rushed through his body as he gained complete control over all his muscles at once. The fifth gate poured power directly into his limbs, multiplying his speed and strength exponentially. His skin took on a reddish pallor as the power settled into place, and Might Guy relaxed his posture back into a fighting stance.

Pfil charged him once again, but to Guy's enhanced reflexes he seemed to be moving at a slow walk. He blocked an upper kick with ease and ran around his foe with blinding speed, slamming his fist home into the small of his back. Before he could fly off Guy delivered two more punches and a kick, finally allowing him to careen through the air and into a thick tree. Pfil bounced off it and landed on his knees, glaring daggers up at his softly glowing enemy.

"Fly, Fairystrike!" Pfil spat softly, holding up his hand at Guy. When nothing came out from Pfil's outstretched hand, Guy quickly looked around him and spotted Pfil's sword flying at his back from behind. He somersaulted over it and landed lightly back on his feet as the sword returned to its master's grip.

"A flying sword?" Guy said calmly. "Weapons interfere with the power of the gates. You'll need more than that to fight against me!"

"Flight isn't Fairystrike's power…" Pfil said, slowly rising to his feet. His voice had a hoarse sound, as if it was unused to being used. "It is a suppressor. Release."

The sword glowed for a couple heartbeats, and then returned to being a normal, if somewhat shorter, blade. But this transformation was dwarfed by the change that came over Pfil. The ground itself shook as power suddenly erupted from him in waves. His skin took on a deep red tint and started flaking away, and he dropped his sword from a shaking hand. Red, green, and blue auras fought an epic battle around him, swirling in chaotic patterns that were sickening to watch.

Guy almost stumbled over a tree root as he backed off. _That's the sixth gate… no, the seventh! What is this? I didn't feel him opening any more gates!_

No other thought was possible as Pfil closed the distance between them as if he had teleported. Guy barely got his hands up to block a seemingly lazy punch that rocked him to his core. Guy leapt backward in near-complete retreat, trying to gain some distance. His arm ached where Pfil's fist had hit it and he suspected that it had nearly been broken. His flight was cut short as Pfil snagged him around the ankle in a bone-crushing grip.

"Master of the gates?" Pfil breathed. "I know all about them. Found them all on my own." He twisted and flung Guy end over end through the air clear over the treetops. Guy skipped along the upper branches a few times before gaining control over his fall. But just as he rolled to a halt Pfil exploded up from below him, pummeling him wildly.

"But without a teacher, I didn't know when to stop." Pfil continued, the strain of the gates growing ever more evident in his hoarse tone. "One day I opened the eighth gate. It should have finished me, but that works a little differently back home… so instead, something broke."

_Sixth gate, Keimon, release!_ A reddish aura flowed out from Might Guy as he cranked up his game. Suddenly knocking Pfil's arms wide with a sweep, he landed a broad kick across his stomach that drove him back a few yards. Gaining the momentum, Guy followed after and began machine gunning his arms. The blows moved with such speed that the friction caused by the displaced air caught fire and waves of flame poured out from his hands.

"Morning Peacock!" Guy shouted, throwing hundreds of blows in as many heartbeats. Pfil didn't have Guy's technique, but he did have as much power and speed at his disposal. He gave as much as he got, slipping side to side and punching Guy's fists back whenever he could. The heat from their blows radiated out from their contest and in a matter of moments most of the surrounding trees were on fire. Guy was thinking that he might have gained the upper hand when the bone in his left arm broke, weakened as it had been by Pfil's earlier strike. Guy slipped to the side and tried to adjust with his remaining arm, but Pfil caught it and squeezed, pulling him closer.

"I can't close the gates anymore." Pfil croaked roughly. "If it weren't for my sword, my body would have torn itself to pieces ages ago. I live like this every second of my life. And you, who can only access the gates for a few minutes at a time; you think you can teach me how to use them?"

Pfil raised his arm swiftly and threw Guy down as hard as his enhanced strength would allow. Guy smashed his way through the tree's thick branches before slamming into the ground hard enough to raise a ten foot deep crater. He screamed in pain as his already taxing muscles were pushed to their limits. Barely conscious, he gulped in lungfuls of air as his enemy dropped down and approached the hole.

_I don't have much time,_ he thought desperately. _My body is going to give out any second. But his must be far worse than mine. No matter how he's been suppressing the gates, there must be long time damage to his body that's been building up. I'm going to have to push him all the way to overwhelm his injuries!_

As Pfil crossed over the lip of the crater, Guy released the seventh gate. Blue sweat poured out from his pores and evaporated against the heat of his skin, creating a thick aura that wrapped him head to toe. Unable to form the signs for his Afternoon Tiger without the use of his other arm, Guy threw the last of his strength into a straight right hook. Pfil instinctively responded in kind, no longer holding back his own pressure.

When the seventh gate is unlocked, the hand will move so fast that it creates a vacuum in its wake. Air then immediately follows to fill the gap, which bursts into spontaneous flame at the speed of it all. While neither of them had the focus to aim their strikes, the clashing of their two vacuums warping around each other would have made it irrelevant anyway.

The entire area simply erupted in flames so hot they were white. Trees that weren't immediately ashed were torn up from the ground and hurled away. The earth was scorched solid and the blast could be heard from the entire length of the valley. Combatants paused all over to glance up at the rising plume of smoke and ash.

* * *

"Something's happening…" Yamato said in a strained voice seconds before the wood pinning Redfire in place burst into flames.

With a roar of effort, Red tore his arms free from the weakened wood and sent fiery splinters flying in all directions. The tattoos all along his skin began to glow a bright yellow as his aura slowly began building up again. Lee was at his side before he had a chance to get clear of the wreckage, delivering a sharp kick to the side of his chest. Red grunted from the blow and fell back, but Lee hissed in pain and retreated a ways as well. The fabric on his leg had been seared black and he favored it slightly when he put a little of his weight down on it.

Naruto and Shikamaru were already closing in on him, so Red turned his back on Lee for the moment. Summoning smoke curled around his left palm and a half dozen small rockets shot out at the two of them. They didn't have time to dodge as the missiles bore down on them, but wooden shields grew out of the ground to provide cover just in time. Four of the rockets exploded on them, not dealing enough damage to break through. The other two sailed past the defenses and nearly hit Yamato where he crouched, instead hitting several trees and setting them aflame.

Naruto jumped onto the top of his wooden shield and launched off it at the Demons nin. He threw several kunai before him, but Red easily snatched them from the air. His aura was down enough that they didn't immediately melt; rather they glowed a cherry red in his hands as he flipped them over and expertly threw them back. They sank with a hiss into Naruto's chest, but the clone dissolved in an explosion of smoke. The real Naruto stepped around his wooden barrier, a swirling ball of chakra in each of his hands.

Red raised his hand in his direction, but before he could summon anything a fist slammed into the back of his head and drove him forward. Lee had wrapped bandages over his fists and arms, and he quickly dashed to the side so he could launch another punch at his opponent's head. Red managed to catch the blow this time in his left hand and in a swirl of smoke Lee's fist was wrapped in explosive tags. Lee leaped away and just managed to rip the papers from his arm before they went off, driving him dazed into the ground.

The split in his attention was all Naruto needed to drive his hands into Red's back. "Double Rasengan!" he shouted, driving the jutsu home with all his strength. But instead of being crushed Red merely arched over the blow, hissing in discomfort as his tattoos flared with extra power. The rasengans shrank and disappeared, leaving only tears in his cloak and small wounds as they were absorbed into his aura. Naruto's surprise lasted only seconds as the air around him became almost too hot to breathe. Choking, he wasn't able to dodge as Redfire grabbed him by the collar and lifted him into the air.

"Did I detect a hint of wind in your chakra?" He grinned, the fabric in his grip blackening by the second. "Don't you know how the elements work? Wind feeds fire." Naruto gasped, barely holding on to consciousness. Grinning, Red raised his hand to summon flames all over his captive, but his arm wouldn't respond. Then his other hand moved on its own, opening slowly to drop his captive to the ground.

"Get him back!" Shikamaru ordered, standing next to his wooden shield and holding his open hand out before him. Lee caught Naruto before he could hit the ground and raced back to the safety of the wooden barriers.

Looking down, Redfire saw that Shikamaru's shadow had stretched across the ground to connect with his. "Shadow Imitation Technique? I didn't think anyone used that jutsu." Red sucked in a deep breath and his aura shot up dramatically. His tattoos glowed brighter and brighter until he was actually emitting light, overwhelming all the shadows around him. Shikamaru's shadow, no longer connected to anything and shrinking under the glare, retracted back to its owner.

Red stabbed his palm with his right ring finger and flicked his hand at the shadow master. A sheet of flaming napalm flew at him and he barely had time to duck behind the barrier before the whole area was coated. Holding his arm up before his mouth to ward off the smoke, he tried to squint over lip of the burning shield at his opponent. A rocket skipped over the wood to his left, just barely missing his head.

"Everyone, fall back!" Yamato called, thrusting his hands into the ground again. A wall of wood several yards thick rose out of the ground, splitting the battlefield in half. Coughing on the smoke, Naruto, Lee, and Shikamaru stumbled back to crouch around him in a half circle.

"We can't even get close to him…" Lee said, holding up the burnt bandages covering his hands. "He's so hot that if he gets his hands on one of us, that's it!"

Shikamaru snorted and looked askance at Naruto. "Then we'll have to keep our distance from him. Naruto, can you pull off one of those rasengan shuriken you used on Pain?"

Naruto thought for a second before flashing a thumbs up. "I'll need some time to collect the sage chakra first. I don't have any clones prepared to do it for me this time."

"So we have a plan." Yamato said. "We'll distract him long enough for you to…"

They were interrupted at the wall of wood bulged outward and split in the middle. The grains popped and sizzled, contorting as all the bits of trapped water evaporated inside the planks. Red calmly walked through the burning wood as if it were a thick mist, melting a warped, glowing hole in his wake. He folded his arms over his chest and grinned down at the lot of them.

"Wind, shadows, and _wood!_" he laughed. "I don't think there could be a group _less_ able to offer me a challenge! Now, why don't you all stop struggling before I use up too much stamina? Yours isn't the only team I have to track down today."

In answer, Shikamaru clasped his hands together and shot his shadow across the ground at him. The shadow peeled itself off the ground and split into a swarm of sharp-tipped tendrils, shooting at his chest like a net of spears. Red calmly raised his right hand and opened up his flamethrower, blasting the shadows apart and racing at the crouching foursome. Naruto backed up just enough for the flames to go rushing past him and sat down, trying to tune out the battle around him to concentrate on collecting chakra.

Lee ducked and weaved as the gout of flame chased him around the field. Turning a little too close to one dodge, he suddenly found himself cornered against the line of trees that had already gone up from Red's earlier attacks. Red smiled and moved to push his trapped foe into the forest fire, but a small tree burst from the ground and knocked his hand wide, snapping his hold in the summoning jutsu. Yamato was at his back in an instant, grabbing a hold of his arms and forcing then back despite the heat.

"Oh no, you don't!" Red growled. He amped up his aura to boiling levels and Yamato fell back with a curse. Red stabbed his right palm with his thumb and curled his fingers, cupping them over the small jet of gas released from his jutsu. The gas ignited on his aura and burn a bright blue, resembling the flame of a Bunsen burner save for being almost two feet in length. Redfire spun and swung the flame like a sword, slicing easily through the wood clone Yamato had been attacking him with.

A quick scan of the area revealed Yamato crouching next to the remains of his wall, gasping at the excessive use of his _mokuton_ creation. Red made to leap across the distance between them when his shadow exploded upwards in a swarm of tentacles and wrapped around his body. Swinging his sword wildly, Red just managed to keep his hands clear of the grasping limbs. He flicked his left ring finger and summoned a cluster of flash bomb that ignited in a blinding glare, driving the shadows away. When the light faded Red was nowhere to be seen.

_Drat…_ Shikamaru thought, glancing left and right to try and find where he had gone off to. _I don't know how much longer we can hold this guy. Hurry up, Naruto!_ He shifted his perch on the tree limb and took a quick look at the approaching line of fire spreading through the trees. In a few minutes he'd have to find a new hiding spot, but until then the fires would only serve to make the shadows longer. A small movement caught his eye and he started to shout a warning.

Rockets streamed forth from out of the burning tree line, one after another in a seemingly endless supply. Lee, standing in the middle of the battle zone, had his back to them and almost didn't see them coming. Just in time, trees sprouted from the ground between him and the missiles, intercepting the first few and giving Lee the time he needed to dodge away.

But Redfire wasn't done. He walked out of the forest straight through the flames, framed in the roaring light like some monster from hell. He continued pouring rockets from his left hand and they burst through the light tree shield, speeding towards their true target. Yamato eyes widened in surprise and he got up to run out of the way, but his knees buckled under him. Desperate, he continued his _Birth of the Trees_ jutsu, growing a forest in the path of the missiles. But they proved only a meager defense as the rockets blew each tree to pieces faster than they could grow. One of the rockets managed to get through the tangle to detonate on his chest, and everything after that was lost in the expanding fireball.

"Finally got one! How many successes does it take to get you guys?" Red laughed, just before Lee's leg slammed into the back of his head. Red stumbled to the side but stayed up, turning slowly back to his attacker. Lee cried out in pain and fell to the ground, the fabric of his right pant leg burned away and the skin beneath horribly red. Red raised his flame sword and there was no chance for Lee to get out of the way.

This was when the huge explosion went off in the distance. A huge white fireball dwarfed the trees around it and the wave of heat that hit them almost surpassed the blaze coming off Red. Shikamaru was thrown from his perch as the force uprooted his tree and he rolled a couple of times before fetching up against the remains of the wooden wall. Wind whipped around them before dying off, taking with it the ear-splitting noise and leaving an unnatural silence broken only by the sound of burning wood.

"That was the seventh gate. Master…" Lee sputtered, trying to get unsteadily to his feet. A hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up.

"Thanks for holding him off." Naruto's clone said, grinning down at him. Several others had surrounded Red and were making alternating attacks to keep him in the same area. Across the way the real Naruto stood with two clones at his hand, arms outstretched from the swirling ball of energy he was holding. The ball looked like one of his regular rasengan but much larger and there was a fan of sharp blades made from wind around it in a ring. He hefted the jutsu as the clones at his side vanished and threw the whole thing with all his strength.

The ball cut through the air with a whine and the clone picked up Lee as it passed by, carrying him out of the blast radius. The shuriken rasengan collided with Redfire and expanded into a giant sphere of swirling, destructive energy. Red was completely hidden from sight as the storm of energy centered on him, the forces at play tearing the remaining clones to shreds. All that could be made out from it was a blinding white glow, evidently coming off his tattoos as he attempted to absorb as much of the wind as he could. But even this light was soon overwhelmed and the whirling energies started to wind down.

Shikamaru hobbled over and met the other two where they crouched, never taking his eyes off the jutsu. "I thought he'd never go down. That was truly impressive, Naruto. No wonder you… could…" he stuttered off as his eyes widened in disbelief.

The last of the shuriken rasengan dispersed to reveal that Red was still on his feet. His fine clothes had been torn to shreds and lay about him in tatters. His skin was covered in innumerable cuts and blood. But somehow he had the strength to remain standing and his tattoos glowed so brightly they burned to look at. Red's head rolled forward and he opened his eyes, fixing them with a glare that was pure hatred.

"That's it. Everyone burns." He raised his palms, the circle tattooed on each burning so bright steam rose off them, and slammed them into the ground. "Volcanic Judgment Technique!"

All of his energy seemed to be transferred directly into the earth and for a second nothing happened. Then heat surged up from the ground as if they were sitting on the surface of the sun. Jets of steam burst up all around and every plant in the area caught fire at once. The ground itself started to slide as if it were turning liquid. The three Leaf nin clutched at each other to keep themselves from sprawling over as the ground buckled once, not a one of them knowing what to do.

Slowly, painfully, Yamato climbed to his knees. He didn't give the terrible wound in his chest any thought, nor did he think about all the blood he had lost. His only thoughts were on a small underground lake sixty feet below him. With shaking movements he clasped his hands together and called upon one last technique. _Plunge Pool Jutsu._

The ground heaved and burst upwards as a geyser roared up out of the center of area, spray water in all directions. The ground, already weakened to a semi-liquid state, sloughed inwards in a funnel, choking off most of the geyser's force. The funnel rapidly filled with water that boiled and steaming in the open air. Naruto used the last of his sage chakra to grab the others and hurling them all free of the widening lip.

Redfire teetered over the edge on unsteady legs before losing his balance and tumbling down the slope. He screamed once before submerging into the frothing water, which immediately boiled more fiercely. Nothing could be made out from beneath the churning waves and the high pitched hiss as it steamed away.

Naruto and the others stared down into the bubbling pit for a while, watching as the two opposing forces balanced out and the ground stopped sliding. The water showed no signs of cooling down, however, and Naruto was the first to drag his gaze away. His eyes fell on the fallen from across the pit. He started to walk around to it, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him short.

"There's nothing we can do for him." Shikamaru said. He wouldn't meet his eyes. "None of us are healers, and the rest might need our help. We have to go."

Naruto glared at him, but bit back the sharp words he had been about to yell. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He nodded in resignation and leapt off in the other direction through a gap in the burning foliage, towards Demons. After a moments' hesitation, the others followed.

* * *

Agrael walked around the edge of the open gates and looked out. The echoes of distant explosions were just fading from the air. He looked cautiously left and right, but no one was there. Steeling himself, excited by the nearby sounds of battle, he strode confidently down the steps.

A hand closed over his shoulder. "Where do you think you're going?" Daga asked. "You were told to stay back and guard the streets."

Small windows and readouts popped up on the glass visor, detailing the strengths and chakra output of the man behind him. Agrael could have laughed aloud at the wealth of information available. "I'm going out to have some fun."

Daga's brow furrowed and he let go of his shoulder with a hiss, rubbing his palm to cool it down. "That armor! And it's hot to the touch… what have you done?"

Agrael half turned and lay a hand casually over his hip, where a compartment popped open. Several hilts poked out from the opening. "I borrowed some Sacred Fire to power it up. I'm not crazy enough to tap my stamina like that loony old knight."

Daga started to say something, but froze as some unseen source caught his attention. "I have no time for this. The first of them have entered my range, and anyone caught out here isn't going to survive."

"So are you going to _make_ me…" Agrael started, but several warning lights flashed on in his visor and demanded his attention. Against his will, he spun in place and started walking back into the village. Agrael strained against the armor, but it wasn't responding to any of his commands. He crossed the threshold and turned around, standing firmly in place with his arms pinned to his side. The gates closed softly on their own volition, slowing to a halt when there was only a sliver of space open.

Daga reached up and tugged his hood further down, so that his face was completely lost in the shadow. "I'll leave it a bit open so that you can see what you almost foolishly got caught in."

* * *

"What was that?" Ino asked, looking back over her shoulder as they traveled.

"I believe it was one of Might Guys higher gates." Kakashi answered. _If he had to go that high already…_ He didn't voice his concerns to the others.

Suddenly, Neji threw up his hands and motioned the others to slow to a stop. "I see something up ahead."

"Defenders?" Kakashi asked.

"I'm not sure." Neji answered, and they continued closer at slower pace. As they neared, Neji's eyes widened in confusion. "What… is this?"

* * *

"Why isn't it working?" Kouri growled in frustration. Panting, she cut her thumb again and pressed it into the ground. But once again her summons wouldn't come. _And without them, I have no reinforcements…_

Kouri cursed again and leaned back against her tree, peeking around the edge back where she had come from. The forest was empty, but she didn't trust it. _Now where did that witch go? Maybe I finally shook her off…_

The tip of a knife pierced straight through the tree trunk and stabbed at her back. Kouri's _jinton_ saved her at the last second, throwing herself backwards with inhuman speed and dropping to a ready crouch with her hand over her kunai pouch.

Kizutsu walked calmly around the tree and sliced her knife out of it with no resistance. "Are you going to just run around all day, or are you going to actually fight me?"

"Suck on this!" Kouri swore, _jinton_-enhanced reflexes whipping a trio of kunai as fast as bullets. The kunai left gaping holes through the mist clone, which laughed at her as it dissipated. Having seen this trick already, Kouri threw herself to the side as Kizutsu dropped from above and barely missed her. She scooped up her weapon from where the clone had dropped it in a flash and then they were staring at each other again.

"This is starting to become a grind…" Kizutsu sighed. She reached into her back pocket at removed a brown glove, pulling it onto her left hand. "Guess I should start pulling out the stops or I'll be here all day…"

"Could one of you tell me what's going on?" a voice asked.

The two off them glanced to the side and up at a man perched on the end of a tree limb. The man was dressed in a full body black cloak with red clouds painted over it in places. His face was covered in an orange mask, detailed with a swirling pattern that led to the mask's only open eye hole.

Kizutsu turned to this new challenger and palmed her knife into a more comfortable position as the man leapt down from his seat to approach them. "And who are you supposed to be?"

The man leaned forward and Kizutsu got the impression he was smiling beneath the mask. "Madara."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Madara?" Kizutsu repeated, cocking her head to the side. "Never heard of you."

The masked man's step faltered and his one eye widened in stunned surprise. "I… hmm, I didn't think anyone hadn't heard of me. At least any of the big players…"

Kizutsu chuckled and flipped her blade playfully. "Never claimed to be one of the top players. Save for once per season, of course. You're the one claiming to be someone you're not, eh, _Good Boy?_"

Madara flinched at something in her words and spread out his hands warily. He appraised her again with a more careful and critical eye. "It sounds like we're having two different conversations, but just in case… perhaps you'll tell me where you got this _information?_"

_Oh shit oh shit it's really him! And they're completely ignoring me! If I can just tag him once…_ Kouri inched her hand with agonizing slowness to the pouch at her hip, never taking her eyes of the two of them for a second. They were silent now, sizing each other up and waiting for the first move to be made. She slipped her fingers under the flap and quested for the loop in the closest kunai. The tip of her finger hooked it and started to pull it out… and it shifted slightly off her fingernail. It settled down onto the next kunai in line with a clank that sounded like breaking glass to Kouri's pounding ears. _FUCK!_

Hesitation meant death and, worse, the loss of the opportunity. Careless of the sound, she grabbed up as many kunai as she could hold. She whipped her arm around with every ounce of _jinton_ she had, feeling the bones in her arm snap under the pressure of moving so fast. The blades flew true, outracing the crack of displaced air they created. Madara was only slightly through turning his head in her direction when the first kunai sank all the way into his chest, followed quickly by the other dozen.

Kouri's surge of elation plummeted, however, when the blades continued on their way out his back without having caused any damage. Knowing she was dead, she pulled out a handful of kunai with her good arm and leapt at him, hoping she could surprise him by rushing. "_DIE, YOU PIECE OF SHI-"_

The space between them twisted and spun into a spiral that was centered on the eyehole in Madara's mask. Kouri's body was twisted out of shape and sucked into the hole in space his ocular jutsu had created. Within seconds she was gone and the swirling energies dissipated.

"What a mouth on that one." Madara said, turning back to find Kizutsu crossing the distance between them with her blade at the ready. Confident in his techniques, he calmly waited for her strike to pass harmlessly through so he could subdue her and begin the questioning.

Kizutsu's blade cut into the mask just above the nose and carved left, slicing neatly through the center of his revealed eye. Some shock on Madara's part or instinct on Kizutsu's turned the blow into a nonfatal one, the knife slicing a neat red line along the side of his head and exiting above the ear. The mask dangled from his face as its straps were severed, the whole thing getting knocked clear from his head as he raised shaking hands to his ruined face. He fell back, screaming in pain and shock at how horribly wrong this had gone.

"Don't know what technique that was, but I don't want to see it again." Kizutsu said, glancing around and spotting the mask lying on the ground. "Hey, is that one of the new ninpo masks? I need this!"

"My eye!" Madara screamed, clutching his face while his left eye rolled about madly. "I only have one of that eye! What have you done?" _I can… I can fix this. Izanagi… can repair my eye… I don't care about the left one…_

"What are you up to now?" Kizutsu muttered to herself as Madara straightened and turned to face her again. "Guess I shouldn't mess around against a guy who gets free successes. Perforate!" Her knife responded by catching light reflecting of it and intensifying it, lancing out in all directions. Mirror images of the blade hovered into existence all around her arm, moving back and forth as she shifted her grip. A quick step as she was right on top of her adversary.

Madara activated his Izanagi just as she swam into his vision. He immediately gauged the technique as one that hid which blade was the real one so that she could strike from an unexpected angle. It was a simple matter for his sharingan to pick out which was the real knife and an even simpler one for his reality shifting jutsu to turn it temporarily into a genjutsu. The attack safely out of his mind, he turned his attention to repairing his body.

He didn't know that her blade's special ability was to be unstoppable.

He was stabbed, each of the illusionary blades cutting into him over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

* * *

The Earth nin overbalanced himself with his swing, and Reokun slipped under his sword arm and pressed his palm against the ninja's back. "Clear!"

The electric blast snapped the ninja's spine and sent his twisting away through the air. But blood also spurted from Reokun's cracked and charred palm and he pressed it carefully to his chest._ The gel's burned away again,_ he thought, but had no time for more thought as four more Earth nin bore down on him. He passed his good hand over his dwindling supply of potions and selected a bottle of murky purple fluid. He tossed the bottle at them and twisted away, trying to get as much distance between himself and the liquid's splash radius.

One of his pursuers opened his mouth and spat out a stream of fist-sized rocks at his turned back. One of them smashed through the thrown bottle and the fail potion spread out in all directions, only one of them managing not to get hit. The chakras of those three flared to massive levels in an instant. The first put his foot down too hard and embedded it up to the knee into the solid ground. The second lost all footing as his legs moved faster than he was and he crashed into the third, who was holding his hands over his mouth and trying to stem the flow of stones as his jutsu went into overdrive.

The last ninja avoided the tangle of his companions by leaping over them and tossing a series of sharpened stakes dripping with poison. Reokun, back and shoulders stinging from the stone pelting, popped a small vial filled with grains of dark sand into his lips and leaped up to meet him in midair. Several stakes cut into his flesh, but the reversing hourglass mixture he had just downed allowed him to ignore the wounds. He slammed his palm into the surprised ninja's chest and braced himself for the feedback. "Clear!"

The discharge sent them spinning away from each other and Reokun landed painfully on his injured shoulder. He tried to rise to his feet but shuddered, his body trembling with low stamina. _I'm almost out of appetite, and they just keep coming._ Blood was dripping over his left eye, but he glared in the direction of the huge crater that had opened in the ground. Even as he watched more Earth nin poured out of the opening, several peeling off in his direction.

Reokun huffed and started crawling towards the cover of the trees. He understood that the whole operation had been botched, that even now these invaders were bearing down on Demons, and he needed just a second to get a message back to the village. He wished Katar could cause a distraction to buy him time, after all, what other use is there for someone that loud? But no, the last he had seen of Katar had been him fleeing from at least nine enemies and he had no doubt that he was idled by now. He would have to create his own distraction, with or without chakra and stamina. He fumbled in his pockets for something, anything, he could use and closed his bleeding hand around a ninja-on. He had almost used too many of these already, but it was better than nothing, and he could-

Three oversized shuriken slammed into his back, the tips bursting out the other side. Reokun gasped and fell face first into the ground. This wasn't right; this wasn't supposed to _hurt…_

The Earth ninja who had made the toss stepped forward to finish the job, but he needn't have bothered. Reokun had idled, and already his blood was turning to sand and dust.

* * *

"There's chakra everywhere." Neji said thoughtfully, eyes sweeping in every direction before him. "Most of the trees and a bit of the ground have been infused with it. I don't see any seals or latent jutsu with them, though… just chakra."

"Better to be safe." Kakashi warned, holding his hand out to keep them behind him. "Point out the spots in this area." He pulled out a kunai and threw it at the nearest tree Neji indicated. The knife cut deep into the tree, but there was no other reaction. Cautiously, Kakashi walked forward and placed his hand on the truck. Nothing happened, and he turned back to the others with a smile.

"Doesn't seem dangerous. Probably a sensory technique." He said cautiously, and then with a soft rustling of leaves the tree crashed down on him. There was no other sound; the ground had pulled itself away from the roots and the branches had folded in along the truck. The tree simply pulled itself up and bore down upon him from behind.

Choji reacted first, expanding his arm and catching the truck scant inches above the jonin's head. The tree seemed to writhe in his grip for a moment and then its great bulk pulled away, nearly carrying him with it before he released his grip.

"To the side!" Neji shouted, already moving to place himself between Choji and a pair of rocks that were flying at them. He concentrated his chakra and thrust his palms out, sending a dual blast of invisible chakra through the air. The rocks shattered and rained pieces in a soft arc around him, but he was already moving. He back flipped and vaulted over Choji's back, pooling chakra into his palm. A log that had been lying innocently under a nearby bush was nearly upon them, and with a single touch Neji blasted it away.

"No wonder I have to come out in person." Daga sighed, stepping out of the tree cover. The hood of his cloak was pulled far down to hide his face and his sleeves dangled down over his hands. "I seem to be running into one of you white eyes everywhere I go. Just my luck."

Neji's eyes widened as they locked on this newcomer. "He's got the same chakra I've been seeing. And he's completely surrounded in it; I can barely make him out beneath it."

"He's one of the three I saw in Tikei's mind!" Ino said, "The one who attacked my father!"

"The name's Daga Yemar." he said, bowing slightly and sweeping his arm out to his sides. "And now it's time for you to vanish." He whipped his arms crosswise and shuriken shot out from the depths of his sleeves. Kakashi easily slipped out of the way of the two that bore down on him and noted with satisfaction that everyone else avoided the simple attack as well.

He was calling chakra into his palm, readying an attack to finish this battle quickly, when Neji cried out in shock. "Behind us!"

Kakashi spun and saw that the two shuriken he had dodged had turned around and were flying back at him. He ducked under them, but they followed after him and he barely twisted enough that they missed his head and burrowed into his shoulder instead. The pain was sharp but ignorable as he regained his bearings and turned his attention back to the battle.

Neji had focused chakra into his fingertips and jabbed the missiles out of the air, shattering them to pieces with hardly any effort. He met Daga's charge and thrust his palm out, but Daga leapt backwards out of reach. More shuriken poured out from his sleeves and came at Neji from all sides, causing him to halt his charge. He fell into a comfortable spin, initiating his trademark technique to repel all attacks. The shuriken bounced off his chakra but turned back in midair rather than fly away, hammering into him again and again and pinning him in place.

Choji took the opening to leap into a forward roll from the side. His long hair lengthened and hardened into spikes as he rolled at Daga like an unstoppable juggernaut. But Daga had retreated far enough back to place his hand of the trunk of a tall oak. A thick branch snapped as it moved on its own volition at the same time as a lip of earth lifted up in the human boulder's path. Choji launched off the platform and the branch slammed into him, turning him tumbling aside. But the attack had distracted him enough for the others to hem him in around the tree.

"I understand your technique." Kakashi said threateningly, taking the break in the fighting to inform his teammates. "You can mentally control any object you've infused your chakra with. Showing up in person grants you more precise control, but I assume you can control then remotely as well."

"Heh." Daga chuckled, nodding in his direction. "You are sharp. It's a lot like putting gas in a car; I can move anything as long as I give it enough 'fuel'. But there is one thing you've missed…" Whatever he had been about to say was cut off as his limbs seemed to gain a life of their own. His right arm wrapped around his neck and his left gripped it by the elbow, locking it in place. Daga reeled back, trying to stop his own arms from choking him.

"Go on!" Ino shouted, holding her hands before her in a box shape. "This jutsu won't work on him for long!"

"I'm on it! Get in position behind me!" Negi shouted, releasing a surge of chakra that blasted the floating shuriken away. Freed from their press, he covered the ground in a second and jabbed his fingers over and over again into his enemy's chest. Neji's body blocked the path of Ino's jutsu, releasing his arms from pressing against his throat. Neji slammed into him repeatedly, not able to see the tenketsu through the glare of chakra but experienced enough to aim correctly without it. "Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. _Sixty-four palms!_"

Taking their cue from the last number, Kakashi and Sakura came in from either side. Lightning collected in Kakashi's palm as he stabbed a chidori straight through the chest, ripping open the cloak's zipper. Sakura focused all of her chakra into a single strike, driving her fist into the back of the hood with enough force to reduce boulders into gravel. The hood dented under the force of the blow and tore off.

The cloak was empty.

In the second it took for them to register he wasn't in the cloak, Daga leapt from where he had been hiding the whole fight and landed at Kakashi's side. He was wearing a close fit shirt and black pants cut off at the knee, and a headband tied around his neck. His skin was taught over his muscles as if he had missed several meals and there was an intent glare in his eyes. A pair of wooden dispensers hung from each of his shoulders, each clicking softly as chakra-infused shuriken popped one by one out of them. His feet were bare and made almost no sound on the soft ground.

"What you missed was how fast I can pour chakra." Daga said, punching Kakashi in the side and slamming the heel of his foot into his shin. Kakashi stumbled back and started to turn, but his legs buckled beneath him as his pants pulled his legs out in either direction. The cuffs of his sleeves tightened over his wrists, cutting off his circulation and pulling his arms out to the side. He felt his collar tighten around his throat and clenched his neck to stop it from cutting off his air.

Sakura yelled and tried to pull her arm back out of the cloak, but the garment surged back up around her arm and held on tight. Metal fibers woven into the fabric cut into her arm as it squeezed and she cried out in pain. Almost lazily the sleeves gripped her around the waist, lifting her off the ground and threw her back first into the nearby oak. She slumped unconscious to the ground.

The swarm of shuriken met Neji as he tried to move around the cloak. They dived at him before he could gain momentum for his spin and drove him backwards, his arms moving in a blur to keep their spinning blades away. He was doing well until he felt a hand pat him on the shoulder. His sleeves immediately stiffened, impeding his ability to keep the stars at bay. They sliced into him as Daga turned away, holding out his arms and allowing his torn cloak to flow back over him.

Choji stepped around the oak and roared as he threw a haymaker with an enormous fist. But before he even got close the ground beneath his feet opened and swallowed him up to the waist, throwing his aim wide. Choji struggled against the hungry earth until a large rock lifted up and dashed him across the head, stopping his struggling.

"Let's see…" Daga said thoughtfully. "I think there was one more…" The back of his cloak bulged out as Ino dived at him from behind, catching her by the wrist and lifting her up into the air. Daga turned as the cloak forced the kunai out of her grip and appraised her. He plucked a shuriken from the air and reached silently for her throat.

_I have to do something!_ Kakashi thought from where he crouched, fighting against the tight grip of his own clothes. Veins popped out around his eye as he opened his mangekyu, releasing the Kamui technique. Space began to warp around Daga's body, focusing down to a single point in space.

Daga twisted, losing his grip on Ino in his confusion. Catching a glimpse of Kakashi, he threw the shuriken with all his strength. The hole in space slowly formed around the weapon as the shuriken quickly filled his vision, the shuriken getting smaller and smaller as it closed in on Kakashi's eye. Then it was gone and the jonin slumped down, his head hitting the ground with a heavy thump.

Daga heaved a sigh of relief. "I didn't think it would reach him in time. Now where were…" He froze and cocked his head to the side, as if listening to a sound only he could hear. "Near the village… _how many?_ I don't have any time to waste here anymore. Looks like you lucked out…" he looked around, but Ino was nowhere to be seen.

Shrugging, Daga dropped into crouch. "Runner, don't fail me now." With a surge of speed he dashed off into the trees, leaving the battlefield quickly behind him.

* * *

Agrael placed his hand against the gate and shoved it open. The heat radiating off his armored palm left a smoking impression in the wood, but he failed to notice. He blinked through the sweat dripping down into his eyes and stared out through the trees at the sound of the approaching army.

"Daga, you fool." He panted. "This armor is designed to absorb chakra. Just accept my help already…"

He had walked as far as halfway to the tree line when the first Earth shinobi appeared. They appraised each other as several more stepped out from the forest and came to a halt behind their leader. A large man, he reached up and unhooked a pair of maces from his back and swung them around lazily. Wind and dust particles whipped around the spiked heads of the weapons as they revolved, the man advancing confidently.

"Finally." Agrael chuckled, triggering the weapons system. Several metal plates all around his waist, shoulders, and sides slid back to reveal hidden pockets stuffed with cloth-wrapped hilts. _I remember seeing Sir Royce fighting in the arena. I guess this is where he kept pulling those enormous weapons from. This is going to be epic!_

Visions of giant swords and lances dancing in his head, he grabbed a hilt at random and quickly pulled it out of its pocket. As the end cleared the open air, the small summoning circle inscribed on the end activated and the top was enshrouded in smoke. He brought the weapon down in a great overhead chop, marveling at how easily the armor compensated for the sudden additional weight. The Earth nin stopped short and crossed his maces over his head, catching the descending mop on the hilts.

The two of them paused and blinked at the mop. The limp strands, slightly damp, drooped out from the metal clasp just over the ninja's head. For a surreal moment, Agrael assumed that the armor was playing some trick on him, that it was rejecting him as its owner. Then the Sacred Fire flowing through him coursed up the wooden handle and the mop burst into flames.

Both combatants reeled back in surprise, but Agrael recovered first. He grabbed the handle in both hands and swung it like a bat. The enemy tried to bring his maces around to block, but the flaming metal head sliced cleanly through the spiked heads and into his side. The man hissed and leaped back, pressing his hand against the burned wound. Agrael followed after him and easily slipped past his feeble defense, striking him down with a single swing.

_That was almost too easy,_ he marveled. _But then again, it was only a single opponent._

The other Earth nin looked at each other uncertainly, but more of them started appearing and they quickly grew more confident. Agrael appraised them and grinned in anticipation, switching the mop to his right hand. He reached back with his left hand and pulled a hilt from his shoulder pouch, which disappeared in a swirl of smoke. The haze dissipated quickly to reveal a short barreled shotgun also wreathed in flames. The open barrels glowed deep red as he swung it around at the approaching army.

"And this!" Agrael called in challenge, "This, is my _boomstick!"_

* * *

High atop the stone wall of the village, a lone figure gazed down upon the figures below. Garren stood with one leg propped up on the lip, his long black cloak flapping in the wind. He had loose black pants and no shirt, rather his chest was wrapped in strips of bandages. He grinned down at the antics of those below him and crossed his arms.

"Heh, looks like the tide is beginning to turn for us." He chuckled, "This is going even better than he planned."

"And who is he?"

Garren felt the sharp tip of a sword tip poking him in the back. "Is that you, OConall? I was wondering where you had disappeared too. Have you been following me this whole time?"

"Azman thought there was a spy in the village, one not even the inquisition could dig up. You were the only one who fit the bill." The sharp tip pressed deeper into his back. "Now talk. You know something about what's been going on here. Who is the one behind it all?"

"Like I would tell you." Garren slipped his hand under the bandages and extracted one of the many explosive tags he had hidden there. "Besides, aren't you going to let me go with a warning? How do you always put it… 'Everybody gets one'?"

"None for you." OConall said, pulling the sword back. "Howl, Yonega Waya!"

Garren spun, the ignited tag spitting a tail of sparks in the air, but he was too slow. The sword, now split down the middle like a sharp tuning fork, got him right in the chest as he came fully around. There was a sound like a deep bell tolling and the air around the wall rippled as if seen through a heat wave. The two stood frozen in place as the sound faded into nothingness, the tag clenched in Garren's grip having been extinguished by an unseen wind. Garren's face was locked in an expression of puzzlement, tiny streams of blood leaking from his ears and the corners of his eyes.

Then OConall jerked back his sword and Garren teetered, slumping back and over the edge. Dust and sand slid off him in waves as he plummeted to the ground below. OConall stepped up to the ledge to watch his descent, standing much like Garren had a moment ago.

The wind whipped his fur laden cloak about his shoulders as he peered at the scene below. He slowly raised his sword and prepared to strike it upon the stone of the wall. One blow would shatter a great chunk of it and sent the debris raining down on the invaders. But a familiar figure walking out of the tree line caught his eye at the last minute and halted his swing. He considered the situation anew and lowered his arm, allowing it to relax back to its dormant state. He sat down cross-legged and waited to see if his assistance would be needed after all.

* * *

Kakashi groaned and opened his eye. Above him, Ino gave a relieved sigh and pulled her hands back, allowing the healing jutsu to dissipate. "Finally, I was starting to run low on chakra."

Slowly, Kakashi raised himself to his elbows and mentally checked himself over. _Exhausted, but whole. No major injuries that haven't been healed. Although one second more and I wouldn't have stopped that shuriken in time._

"What happened after I passed out?" he asked as Ino placed a hand on his shoulder to hold him steady.

"Everyone was knocked out except for me." She said, helping him carefully to his feet. "He had me at his mercy, but something stopped him before he could kill me. He took off running back towards the village without giving us a second glance. I healed Sakura first and the two of us have been tending to you and the others. Choji wasn't hurt too badly, but Neji…"

Kakashi allowed her arm to fall away and turned to where Choji and Sakura were crouching at the other end of the small clearing. Sakura was passing her hands over Neji's chest, pouring healing energies into him. His clothing was in tatters, ripped with so many holes that it was hardly holding together anymore. Kakashi noted scars through the tears all over his body. Sakura wiped the sweat from her brow as he approached and stood up.

"How is he?" Kakashi asked.

"I've managed to close all the wounds." She answered. "But he's lost a lot of blood. He needs time to rest and recover."

"There's no time for that." Neji said, his calm voice at odds with his ragged appearance. "Choji, help me up."

"No, you can't! You're in no shape to go anywhere!" Sakura said, spinning around and staring intently down at him.

Neji met her glare without flinching. "You need my eyes. I'm the only one who can help you avoid any more traps Daga may have left for us." He turned his gaze to Kakashi, his sheer determination clear upon his face.

Between the two of them, Kakashi looked away first. "Choji, carry him. We need to move fast."

"But…!" Ino started, grabbing his arm.

"The others don't know what he can do." Kakashi interrupted. "We have to get this intelligence to them as soon as possible, and the fastest way is to avoid falling into any more ambushes. There's a good chance that Daga is trying to intercept the others as we speak."

No one looked very happy with his logic, but there were no further arguments as Choji bent down and helped Neji onto his back. Within moments they were off, following closely to the trail the Demons nin had left.

* * *

The stream continued to pour from the hole in the ground at a furious pace. The rest of the battlefield had settled into relative calmness and a few wild birds had returned to perch on the new wooden structures dotting the clearing. The sounds of fighting in other parts of the forest occasionally punctuated the calm, but the battle had moved far away from this place. The only real change that made this moment more important than the rest was that the stone lining the water-filled crater had finally cooled down enough to become solid again.

Starting as a small blip here and there, a sudden flurry of bubbles boiled about the surface to the pool at the base of the hole. The swath of bubbles moved from the center of the pool to the edge, becoming more violent the closer they got. Suddenly, a hand shot out from the water with a hiss and clamped onto a crack in the stone. Heat radiated from the limb with such intensity that the water was instantly evaporating an inch above the skin.

With agonizing slowness Redfire pulled himself from the water onto dry land. He paused as soon as he was clear from the pool and allowed his aura to dim slightly. His skin was baked and sunburned, and his tattoos burned so bright it was hard to look at. Slowly, he reached into a pocket on the inner lining of his coat and pulled out something rapped in tinfoil. He peeled the wrapping back and took a large bite, lifting himself higher along the sloped wall with his other hand.

_If nothing else, baking down there was a good way to heat up TACOS…_


End file.
